The key facts

  • One asking rent. Every written advert must state a specific rent, and inviting or accepting a higher offer risks a fine of up to £7,000. Renters' Rights Act 2025, s.56 and s.57.
  • The EPC rating must appear. Any advert for a home offered to rent has to state its energy performance rating. Energy Performance of Buildings Regulations 2012, reg. 11.
  • Up to £7,000 for discrimination. Discouraging tenants with children or on benefits has been a civil penalty offence since 1 May 2026. Renters' Rights Act 2025, s.33, s.34 and s.40.
  • 52% of negative viewing feedback is about space. Kitchen size and layout, overall size and storage lead the comments in our viewings guide, published March 2026.
  • Around nine photos and a floor plan. Rightmove's landlord marketing guide, last updated August 2025, recommends both.

In this article:

  1. What must a rental advert in England include?
  2. What should a property description say?
  3. How accurate does a property description need to be?
  4. What wording counts as discrimination in a rental advert?
  5. Can you still write "no pets" in a rental advert?
  6. How do you make a description easy to read on a phone?
  7. What does a good property description look like?
  8. What should you check before you save the advert?
  9. Sources

What must a rental advert in England include?

A rental advert in England must state one specific asking rent and the property's EPC rating, and should give the deposit, council tax band and which bills the rent includes. The first of these is new: the Renters' Rights Act 2025 changed what an advert must say from 1 May 2026, and this guide covers properties in England only.

A single asking rent

Section 56 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 requires the rent to be stated as a specific amount. A range such as £1,400 to £1,500 is not allowed, and an advert that says "offers over" or "rent on application" does not state a rent at all. The GOV.UK guidance on rental bidding, updated 20 October 2026, says the rule covers online property adverts, printed adverts and social media posts, along with emails, text messages and direct messages.

Once the rent is advertised, you cannot ask for, encourage or accept a higher offer, and the council can fine you up to £7,000 for a first breach under section 57. The advertised figure is the most you can achieve, so it pays to set it carefully. Our guide to getting a rental valuation right goes through how.

The EPC rating

Regulation 11 of the Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) Regulations 2012 requires the energy performance rating to appear in any advert for a property offered to rent. If the advert builder has an EPC field, fill it in. If it does not, put the rating in the description. The minimum rating you need to let at all is covered in our post on EPC rules for landlords.

Deposit, council tax band and bills

Tenants need these figures to judge what the home will cost each month. Leaving them out risks a misleading omission under section 227 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, which took over from the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 on 6 April 2025 and covers information the average consumer needs to make an informed decision. State the deposit in pounds, give the council tax band, and list which bills, if any, the rent covers. Portals provide dedicated fields for most of this, so use them and keep the description for everything else.

What should a property description say?

A property description should give a tenant everything needed to decide whether a viewing is worth their time: layout, size, condition, what is included and what the area offers. In our experience, a description that does this draws interest faster and raises the chance that the people who view go on to make an offer.

Open with the essentials

The first line should give the property type, bedroom count, area and the single strongest feature, for example "Two bedroom maisonette in Sydenham with shared gardens, available now". Add the availability date and whether the home comes furnished, part furnished or unfurnished.

Name what makes it different

Most two-bed flats in a postcode look alike on paper. Name the features a renter will not find in the next listing: a double-height entrance hall, a marble fireplace, access to a residents' gym, a south-facing balcony.

Be specific about condition and recent work

If the kitchen was refitted last year or the flat has been redecorated throughout, make that clear and say exactly what was done. "New kitchen units and worktops, fitted in 2025" tells a tenant more than "recently updated".

Give room sizes, especially the kitchen

Size and layout are the biggest single reason people who view a home decide against it. In the feedback from viewings we ran, published in our guide to viewings in March 2026, kitchen size and layout (21%), overall size (19%) and storage (12%) made up 52% of all negative comments.

We should be clear about what that figure is. It is a share of comments, not of people, and the guide gives approximate frequencies without the number of comments behind them. The pattern is still strong enough to act on. Give room sizes, say what storage there is, and add a floor plan, which answers most of these questions before anyone books. Our post on professional photos, videos and floor plans explains why.

List what comes with it

Set out the bills included in the rent, such as electricity, water or broadband, and the appliances supplied: dishwasher, washing machine, fridge freezer, microwave.

Describe outside space and parking precisely

Spell out what is private, what is shared and what is on-street. "Driveway for one car, with free on-street parking nearby" tells a tenant far more than "parking available". If a permit is needed, mention it.

Cover the practical detail tenants check

Which floor a flat is on and whether there is a lift, the heating type (gas central heating, electric storage heaters, a communal system), broadband availability and any known mobile signal problems all affect whether a home suits someone. National Trading Standards' Estate and Letting Agency Team listed floor level, heating, broadband, mobile signal and parking in Part B of its material information guidance in November 2023. The NRLA notes that this guidance was withdrawn once the 2024 Act replaced the old regulations, so treat it as a sound checklist with no statutory force.

Describe the area in distances

"Five minutes' walk to Angel station" beats "excellent transport links", and naming the nearest primary school, park and supermarket helps a family picture the routine. Landlords who know the area well have an advantage here, and Rightmove's landlord marketing guide encourages them to pass that knowledge on to whoever writes the listing.

Anything the advert builder's Key Features section already lists can come out of the description, and anything Key Features cannot capture belongs in it.

How accurate does a property description need to be?

Every claim in a property description should be one you can prove if challenged. The Committee of Advertising Practice warned property advertisers in an enforcement notice of 19 December 2017 not to describe features they cannot back with documentary evidence. It cited a June 2017 Advertising Standards Authority ruling against a listing that promised "private and secure parking" and "remote control gated access with CCTV" without evidence for either.

Quirks are fine to mention and usually better mentioned. A compact second bedroom described as "a single bedroom, ideal as a home office" sets the right expectation. Calling it a double does not, and the tenant will find out at the viewing anyway. Steep stairs, a shared entrance or a bathroom without a window all belong in a fair description, framed positively where an honest positive exists.

An accurate listing may draw fewer enquiries. The people who do view arrive knowing what to expect, which is what turns a viewing into an offer.

What wording counts as discrimination in a rental advert?

Wording that discourages people with children or on benefits from renting your home has been unlawful in England since 1 May 2026, with fines of up to £7,000 per offence. The duties sit in section 33 (children) and section 34 (benefits) of the Renters' Rights Act 2025, with the penalty in section 40.

GOV.UK's rental discrimination guide for landlords, published 1 May 2026, says this covers withholding information about a property, making a viewing difficult and refusing a tenancy. Lines such as "no DSS" or "no children" are the plainest breach, and our advert builder will reject a description that contains them.

You can still apply an income test. Section 41 keeps income as a legitimate consideration, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government's guidance for local authorities, updated 6 May 2026, says landlords "should set the same income requirement for all prospective tenants and treat all forms of income equally". Benefit income counts the same as wages.

There are narrow exceptions for children, where a restriction is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. The same guidance gives retirement housing and some student accommodation as examples. If one applies to your property, describe the nature of the property clearly instead of writing a blanket exclusion, and take advice before relying on it. The guidance is explicit that "there is no such exception made for discrimination against benefits claimants".

The Equality Act 2010 continues to protect characteristics including race, disability, sex, religion and sexual orientation, so describe the home you are offering and leave out any description of the person you want. We would also steer clear of phrases such as "suit professionals". Our reading is that they risk being taken as an exclusion of people on benefits even where none is intended.

Can you still write "no pets" in a rental advert?

We advise against it, because since 1 May 2026 a tenant can ask in writing to keep a pet and a landlord cannot unreasonably refuse. Section 11 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 inserted the right into the Housing Act 1988 as section 16A.

GOV.UK's guidance on pet requests, updated 20 October 2026, says refusing because you do not like pets, or because of general worries about future damage, would usually be unreasonable. A property too small for a large pet, or a freeholder who does not allow pets where you are the leaseholder, may justify a refusal.

A blanket "no pets" line therefore misstates the tenant's position and may put off good applicants. If the property suits pets, say so, because pet-friendly homes are a selling point in their own right. For deadlines and what you can and cannot ask for, read our post on pets and the Renters' Rights Act.

How do you make a description easy to read on a phone?

Short paragraphs, in the order a tenant would walk through the home, read best on a phone screen. Ofcom's Online Nation report, published 10 December 2025, found adults spend an average of four and a half hours online a day, most of it on a smartphone. One dense block of text is hard work on a small screen.

Follow the order of a viewing

Walk the reader through the home as they would see it in person: entrance, living space, kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom, outside, then the area. Headings help on longer descriptions.

Write in the third person, without superlatives

"Three bedroom flat to rent" reads as a professional listing, where "I have a great flat" does not. Precise words do more work than superlatives: "stunning" and "must-see" tell the reader nothing they can check.

Keep personal details out

Your name, phone number, email address and the property's full address are not permitted in the description. Omitting them protects both you and the property, and enquiries come through the platform.

Match the description to the photos

Rightmove's landlord marketing guide recommends around nine photos and a quality floor plan, taken in daylight on a bright day, and suggests skipping close-ups of fixtures such as taps unless they add something. Make sure every room you describe appears in a photo, and that every photo matches the description.

Read it through before you save

Check spelling, grammar and flow once more. Reading it aloud catches clumsy sentences. An AI assistant can suggest tidier wording, but check that every suggested change is still accurate.

What does a good property description look like?

A good property description walks the reader through the home in viewing order, says exactly what is shared and what is private, and gives distances for the station and shops. The example below assumes the rent, deposit, council tax band and EPC rating sit in the advert's own fields. If they do not, add them in a short final paragraph.

Two bedroom maisonette available now in Sydenham, with shared gardens and free on-street parking.

A brick path through the shared front garden leads to a private front door. Inside is a coat cupboard housing the electricity meter, with stairs up to the main accommodation and all rooms opening off the landing.

The open-plan living space runs across the front of the property. The kitchen area has a range of wall and base units, a freestanding oven and grill with electric hob, a fitted fridge freezer and space and plumbing for a washing machine, with linoleum flooring. The rest of the room is carpeted, with space for a small dining table and two chairs alongside sitting room furniture. A double window overlooks the front garden, and there are connection points for TV and internet.

At the rear are one double and one single bedroom, both looking over the rear garden. The double bedroom has a built-in single wardrobe.

The bathroom has modern white fittings: a low-level WC, wash hand basin and shower over the bath.

A passage from the front garden leads to the shared rear garden, with flower beds, a patio and a gravelled area. There is space for a table and chairs, subject to agreement with the ground-floor occupiers.

Lower Sydenham station, Mayow Park and a selection of local shops and pubs, including a large supermarket, are all within a 10-minute walk.

Every line can be checked at the viewing, and nothing in it describes the tenant the landlord wants.

What should you check before you save the advert?

Check the legal requirements first (one asking rent, the EPC rating, deposit, council tax band and bills), then the quality points, against the list below.

  • One specific asking rent, with no range or "offers over"
  • EPC rating, deposit and council tax band included, and any bills in the rent stated
  • Opening line gives type, bedrooms, area and the best feature
  • Availability date and furnishing stated
  • Outside space and parking described precisely, including what is shared
  • Heating, floor level, room sizes and broadband covered where relevant
  • Every claim is one you can prove, and quirks are acknowledged
  • Nothing that discourages families, people on benefits or anyone with a protected characteristic
  • No blanket "no pets"
  • Third person throughout, with no name, contact details or full address
  • Nothing repeated from Key Features
  • Photos and floor plan match the description
  • Read through for spelling and flow

A description has two jobs: to bring in enquiries from people the home suits, and to give everyone else enough to rule it out before they book. Accurate detail, set out in the order a tenant would see the home, does both.

Sources

Legislation

Government

Regulators and sector

Hello Neighbour

This guide is general information for landlords letting property in England and is not legal advice. It reflects the law and guidance in force when we checked them on 26 October 2026. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have different rules.

Ready to write your advert? Get Listed puts it live on Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket for three months for £29. Let your property yourself.