The government has admitted it does not know how long the Tribunal takes to process rent appeal cases — despite the Renters’ Rights Act expected to trigger a surge in challenges from tenants.

In response to a request from leading housing lawyer David Smith, partner at Spector, Constant and Williams, the Ministry of Justice confirmed it does not hold data on the average time taken for the Tribunal to consider, process, and rule on rent increase appeals.

This comes even as the Renters’ Rights Act, taking effect 1 May 2026, gives every private renter the right to challenge any proposed rent increase above local market rates. However, the only way to know whether a rent increase is above market rate is to take the matter to the Tribunal in the first place.

Why tenants are incentivised to appeal every rent rise

Under the Act, tenants have little to lose by appealing:

• No fee to bring a case.
• Any increase only applies from the date of the Tribunal decision, not from when the landlord proposed it.
• The Tribunal can delay the start of a rent increase by up to two months to avoid hardship.

Even if the Tribunal agrees with the landlord’s proposed increase, the tenant may still benefit from the delay.

The government has given itself powers to backdate rent increases where it deems the system “overwhelmed”, but has not defined what “overwhelmed” means — and has admitted it lacks the baseline data needed to monitor the system in the first place.

Legal experts warn of serious blind spots

Smith describes the lack of data collection as “bizarre”, warning that without measuring current performance, ministers cannot know whether the Tribunal is coping:  “For all its talk of not wanting the system to be overwhelmed, without measuring the average time taken to process rent cases both now and in the future there will be no way of knowing the impact the Renters’ Rights Act is actually having … If ministers are serious about wanting their reforms to work, they need urgently to measure, and publish in full, baseline data on the performance of the Tribunal now.”

He argues that regular publication of Tribunal performance data is essential to show when — or if — the system begins to buckle under the anticipated rise in rent appeals.