Can Tenants Still Pay Quarterly After the Renters' Rights Act?
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
One of the questions I am being asked more frequently is:
"Can a tenant still choose to pay quarterly?"
The short answer is yes, but there is an important distinction.
The Renters' Rights Act changed the obligation, not the tenant's freedom.
For new tenancies, landlords and agents should no longer require rent to be paid quarterly where the legislation prevents this.
However, there is nothing to prevent a tenant from choosing to pay more than one month's rent if that is genuinely their own decision.
This is particularly common with:
Students whose maintenance loans are paid termly.
International students.
Parents wishing to help manage their child's finances.
Tenants who simply prefer to budget several months at a time.
The important point is that the payment must be voluntary.
Protecting the Agent
If a tenant wishes to pay several months in advance, I recommend treating the payment as an advance credit against future monthly rent rather than referring to it as "quarterly rent."
The tenancy should remain a monthly tenancy, with rent falling due monthly.
Any additional money simply sits on the rent account and is allocated to each monthly instalment as it becomes due.
Keep an Audit Trail
If a tenant asks to pay in advance, I also recommend obtaining a short signed declaration confirming that:
the request came from the tenant;
no pressure or requirement was placed upon them;
they understand monthly payments remain the contractual arrangement; and
they have chosen to maintain a rent credit for their own convenience.
This creates a simple audit trail should the arrangement ever be questioned.
Existing Tenancies
Where a tenancy agreement was entered into before the Renters' Rights Act changes took effect, transitional provisions may preserve the existing contractual payment arrangements.
Even so, retaining a written confirmation from the tenant is sensible practice.
The LettingChange View
One of the themes running throughout the Renters' Rights Act is that regulators will increasingly look beyond what happened and ask why it happened.
If an agent can demonstrate that a tenant freely chose to pay in advance, with a clear written record, they are in a much stronger position than if they simply accepted quarterly payments without any explanation.
Sometimes good compliance isn't about doing more—it is simply about keeping better evidence.
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