Legal requirements for renting out a property

England has been moving toward a mandatory national register for short-term lets for a couple of years, and the go-live date has slipped more than once, most recently from an April 2026 target to "later in 2026" with no confirmed date at the time of writing. When it does launch, the expected requirements are straightforward: register the property before listing it, confirm basic safety compliance (smoke alarms, CO alarms, gas safety) as part of registering, and booking platforms will be required to check your registration number before allowing a listing to go live. Penalties for letting an unregistered property are expected to start at a fixed fine and rise for repeat breaches.

We track this one closely and will register any property we manage as soon as the scheme actually opens. If you're letting independently, it's worth checking the current status before you list rather than assuming last year's article is still accurate, the timeline has moved before and may move again.

Outside London there's no blanket national limit on holiday letting, but individual councils can restrict it locally through an Article 4 Direction, which removes the automatic right to switch a property between ordinary residential use and short-term letting. Where a direction is in place, full planning permission is usually needed before letting starts. Dover District, which covers Deal and the surrounding villages, has been tightening its stance on second homes and holiday lets, so it's worth checking current local policy before assuming a property is automatically fine to let, rather than relying on what a neighbouring authority allows.

A normal buildings-and-contents policy is written on the assumption you live in the property, or that a long-term tenant does under an assured shorthold tenancy. Letting short-term to paying guests is a different risk category, and most standard policies exclude it outright, or void the policy if you don't disclose it. You need a specific holiday-let or serviced-accommodation policy, covering public liability for guest injury, contents for a furnished let with turnover of occupants, and loss of income if the property becomes unlettable after damage. If you have a mortgage, check your lender's consent-to-let terms too, some restrict short-term letting specifically.

Until April 2025, holiday lets that qualified as Furnished Holiday Lettings got meaningfully better tax treatment than an ordinary rental: full mortgage interest deduction, capital allowances on furnishings and equipment, and access to certain capital gains reliefs on sale. That regime was abolished from 6 April 2025. Furnished holiday lets are now taxed the same way as any other residential letting: mortgage interest gets a 20% tax credit rather than a full deduction, capital allowances on new spending have stopped, and the capital gains reliefs that used to apply on sale no longer do. If your understanding of the tax position is from before April 2025, it's out of date, and worth a conversation with an accountant before you plan around figures that no longer apply.

This page is general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules on registration, planning and EPCs are changing and dates above can move; always confirm current requirements with your local council, insurer and accountant before letting a property.