It’s one of the most common concerns landlords raise when considering a change of letting agents: what if the disruption unsettles the tenant and they decide to move out? It’s a reasonable question, but in practice, the concern is usually based on a misunderstanding of what a tenancy actually is, and who it’s actually between.


The Tenancy Belongs To The Landlord, Not The Agent

A tenancy agreement is a legal contract between the landlord and the tenant. The letting agent, however involved they may be in day-to-day management, is not a party to that agreement, they act on the landlord’s behalf. This means that switching agents does not touch the tenancy itself in any way. The rent stays the same, the tenancy terms stay the same, and the tenant’s legal rights are entirely unaffected by who happens to be managing the property on the landlord’s behalf.

This is worth stating plainly because the misconception runs the other way surprisingly often. Some tenants, and even some landlords, assume that a change of agent means a new tenancy needs to be signed, or that the tenant has some kind of ongoing relationship with the agent that would be disrupted by a switch. Neither is true. From a legal standpoint, nothing about the tenant’s position changes at all.

The deposit is another area where tenants sometimes have unfounded concerns. Because the deposit is held in a government-backed protection scheme rather than by the agent personally, a change of management doesn’t put it at any greater risk, and the transfer of deposit records between outgoing and incoming agents is a standard, well-established part of any handover. A tenant who understands this upfront has one less thing to worry about when the switch is explained to them.

Fixed-Term Timing Is No Longer A Factor

Previously, landlords sometimes worried about the timing of a switch relative to a tenancy’s fixed-term end date, concerned that a change of management partway through a fixed term might create confusion or an opportunity for a tenant to reconsider renewing. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 has removed this consideration entirely. Since 1 May 2026, all tenancies have operated as Assured Periodic Tenancies, replacing the old system of fixed terms altogether. There is no longer a renewal point or a fixed-term expiry to plan around, which means the timing of an agent switch can be dictated purely by practical considerations, such as notice periods and handover logistics, rather than by where a tenant happens to sit in a tenancy cycle.

What Actually Determines How Tenants Respond

If the legal position is unaffected, what actually shapes whether a tenant feels settled or unsettled by a switch comes down almost entirely to communication. Tenants want to know three practical things: who to contact if something goes wrong, how to report a repair, and where their rent should be paid. When these are communicated clearly, promptly, and before any confusion has a chance to set in, a switch typically passes without any disruption to the tenant’s experience of living in the property.

Where switches do cause friction, it’s almost always because communication was handled poorly rather than because the switch itself was inherently disruptive. A tenant who discovers a change of management through an unexplained new name on a rent statement, without any prior warning or introduction, understandably feels uneasy. The same change, introduced with a clear letter or call ahead of time explaining what’s happening and what, if anything, the tenant needs to do differently, tends to be a non-event.

The practical detail that matters most is giving tenants a single, clear point of contact from day one of the new arrangement. Ambiguity, such as a tenant being unsure whether to contact the old agent or the new one during the handover period, is where confusion and frustration tend to creep in. A short overlap window with a clearly stated cut-off date, communicated to the tenant in writing, removes this ambiguity entirely.

Mid-Tenancy Switches Are Often The Smoother Option

There’s a reasonable argument that switching mid-tenancy is actually easier to manage well than switching at what would once have been a natural break point. When a switch happens mid-tenancy, the incoming agent’s sole focus is on taking over management smoothly, introducing themselves to the existing tenant, and continuing the tenancy without interruption. There’s no tenant-find process running in parallel, no marketing, no viewings, just a clean handover of an existing, settled arrangement. This tends to result in a calmer, more controlled transition than one that coincides with other activity around the property.

Poor Previous Management Can Actually Work In The New Agent’s Favour

Perhaps counterintuitively, tenants who have experienced slow repairs or poor communication under previous management often respond positively to a switch, provided the new agent acts quickly to demonstrate a different standard. A tenant who has been waiting weeks for a repair to be addressed, and finds that the new letting agents resolves it within days of taking over, forms a favourable impression almost immediately. In these situations, a switch isn’t something to be managed around a tenant’s concerns, it’s an opportunity to actively improve the tenant’s experience and reinforce their reasons to stay for the long term.

Slater & Brandley contacts tenants directly as part of every takeover and introduces them to a dedicated property manager from day one. Contact our team to discuss a smooth transition.

Image Source: Envato