The Renters’ Rights Act mandates a specific process for increasing rent on Assured Periodic Tenancies (APTs). Jupix now provides a dedicated workflow to manage these reviews, track Section 13 (S13) notices, and handle First-Tier Tribunal (FTT) challenges.
The Next Review Date field is populated at the start of a tenancy or via the bulk convert tenancies process. It is also updated when finalising an increase. You have the option to edit this date if necessary.
Dashboards
There are four entries on the Property Management section of the Lettings Dashboard to help manage active rent reviews. The entries are:
- Tenancies with rent review due (defaults to reviews due in the next 90 days)
- Rent reviews preparing
- Rent reviews notice served
- Rent reviews in dispute
Note: The existing Tenancies with rent review due list has been amended to exclude tenancies if a rent review has been started.
Starting a Rent Review
To initiate a review, navigate to an active Assured Periodic Tenancy record and select Start Rent Review Process on the Tenancy Details grid.
You’ll be prompted to enter the Proposed Effective Date and Rent Amount, along with fields for Date Notified and Notes for both landlords and tenants.
The Proposed Effective Date and Rent Amount will default to the Next Rent Review Date and Rent Amount from the tenancy. There is an information bubble containing the tenancy’s next rent due date, to help you set the date correctly.
Each Rent Review also has a dedicated Notes and To-Dos section, allowing you to add any notes, documents or reminders. Supporting evidence documents can be attached to the Notes section of the rent review record and will also be displayed in the Notes grid on the tenancy.
Once saved, the Rent Review will also be given a From Rent Amount, taken from the current tenancy rent. The new Rent Review (along with any previous one) will appear in a new Rent Reviews tab on the tenancy record.
Historic Rent Reviews can be viewed and printed individually with their dedicated Notes and To-Dos section.
While the rent review is at the Preparing stage, a Cancel Review button is available to set the review to Cancelled, without affecting the tenancy rent.
Serving the Section 13 Notice
Once the proposed figures are agreed you may wish to notify the landlord and tenant in advance of serving the S13 notice. The next step is to serve the formal S13 notice to the tenant.
In Edit Document Templates, there is a new Document Type of Section 13 and a new System Placement section for Rent Reviews. Documents marked as Section 13 and Rent Review are linked to the Create S13 Document step of the review process.
A Create S13 Document button will display at the top of the Rent Review which will allow creation of any document template assigned to the new S13 document type and Rent Reviews. There are new tags for the rent review fields listed at the end of this article.
This document will then appear in the Notes section and can be edited and emailed out to the landlord and tenant.
A Mark as S13 Served button will also display on the Rent Review, allowing you to set the date the S13 was sent and to advance the status of the rent review to “S13 Served”.
Handling Challenges (First-Tier Tribunal)
Once a S13 notice has been served, if a tenant disputes the increase and wishes to take the case to a First Tier Tribunal, the review can be moved into an "In Dispute" status.
This can be done with the Challenge Received button that displays on S13 Served rent reviews. It allows you to input Challenge Received Date, FTT Decision Date, and dedicated FTT Notes, to track any updates on the case.
Dispute details will be displayed in the Details grid of the rent review.
Finalising the Review
There are two possible outcomes for a Rent Review:
- Finalise rent change
- Finalise with rent unchanged
Finalise Rent Change
Used when you want to proceed with finalising the rent review.
Clicking Finalise Rent Change allows you to confirm the Effective Date of the rent change. Clicking Save on the subsequent screen will update the rent on the tenancy, set the Last Rent Increase Date to the Effective Date and the Next Rent Review Date to the Effective Date + 1 year.
If the tenancy has multiple tenants with a rent-share breakdown, Jupix will proportionally adjust their individual shares to match the new total, in the same way AST renewals currently work.
If the specified Effective Date is later than the date the next rent is due to be demanded, you will be prevented from saving this screen and be shown a warning message. This is to ensure that any rents to be demanded before the rent increase are created at the correct, previous rent amount. You can demand these manually, at which point the finalise process can be completed.
Tip: Check the Rent Reviews Notice Served page to check for unfinalised reviews where the notice has been served. This page also shows the effective date.
Finalise Rent Unchanged
Used if the review concludes that the rent should remain at the current amount.
Clicking Finalise With Rent Unchanged allows you to confirm the Next Rent Review Date of the tenancy, add Landlord or Tenant notes and to specify the reason for not increasing the rent. The Next Rent Review Date defaults to one year from today but can be edited.
For both outcomes, a note will be added to the Rent Review and Tenancy records outlining the decision made.
New Rent Review Merge Tags
The following tags can now be used in Document Templates on rent reviews.
- Status: %rentReview_status%
- From Rent: %rentReview_currentRent%
%rentReview_currentRent_{format}%
%rentReview_currentRentFrequency%
%rentReview_currentRentPerTenant% - Proposed Rent:%rentReview_proposedRent%
%rentReview_proposedRent_{format}%
%rentReview_proposedRentFrequency%
%rentReview_proposedRentPerTenant% - Dates:
- %rentReview_proposed_effective_date_{dateFormat}%
- %rentReview_landlord_notified_date_{dateFormat}%
- %rentReview_tenant_notified_date_{dateFormat}%
- %rentReview_s13_served_date_{dateFormat}%
- %rentReview_ftt_challenge_date_{dateFormat}%
- %rentReview_ftt_decision_date_{dateFormat}%