Housing (Scotland) Act 2025: What Dundee Landlords Need to Know

23 April 2026 · Rent in Dundee

Last reviewed: 23 April 2026. The Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 is a live story; we review this page quarterly. This is general information for Dundee landlords, not legal advice — take proper advice before acting on anything specific to your property or tenancy.

The key dates at a glance

1 April 2026: Rent control framework goes live. Local authorities gain data collection powers.
6 October 2026: Wrongful-termination-order penalties rise to 3–36 months' rent. Succession qualifying period drops to 6 months.
April 2027: Tenants get 30 days to challenge rent increases. Rent officers can't award above the landlord-proposed rent. One joint tenant can end tenancy for all.
31 May 2027: Local authority rent condition assessments due. Any rent control area designations follow after this.

What changed on 1 April 2026

The rent control framework enshrined by the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 went live on 1 April 2026, following Royal Assent in November 2025. The framework itself doesn't cap any rents — on 1 April, no part of Scotland is yet a designated rent control area. What changed is the structural apparatus: councils can now collect rent data from landlords and agents, and the criteria and process for future rent control area designation are set out in law.

If you're a Dundee landlord, the 1 April change is mostly administrative. You may receive rent data requests from Dundee City Council; the council is building a picture of rents in the area and is required to report findings to Scottish Ministers.

October 2026 changes

From 6 October 2026, two specific tenancy changes kick in:

Wrongful-termination-order penalties rise. If the First-tier Tribunal finds a landlord issued an eviction notice under false pretences, the penalty payable to the former tenant moves to a range of 3 to 36 months' rent, depending on severity. This is a meaningful change. Getting the eviction grounds right, and documenting them, matters more than it did.
Succession qualifying period drops to 6 months. A family member or partner who has lived in the property as their only or principal home for 6 months (down from 12) can now succeed to a PRT on the tenant's death.

April 2027 changes

Tenants get 30 days to challenge a rent increase (up from 21).
Rent officers are capped at the landlord-proposed rent on challenge — they can't award more than the landlord asked for. Previously they could. In practice this removes the incentive for tenants to challenge just to see what they might get.
One joint tenant can end the tenancy for all joint tenants with notice. Previously, all joint tenants had to agree. This is a significant change for joint tenancies.

Will Dundee be a rent control area?

Probably not in the near term. Here's the honest picture.

For a rent control area to be designated, the council has to submit a rent condition assessment demonstrating a case, and Scottish Ministers have to accept it. The assessments are due by 31 May 2027 — so any designation can't happen before then, and realistically not before mid-to-late 2027 once the process runs.

Dundee's rent inflation through 2020–2025 has been moderate. Published rent indices show growth broadly tracking CPI for most of that period, with occasional quarters above and below. That's materially different from Edinburgh, where rents rose at pace that pushed the government into emergency measures during 2022–2024, and from parts of Glasgow with similar pressure.

Dundee City Council has signalled interest in the Act's data collection powers — but collecting data and designating a rent control area are different things. If Dundee's assessment is consistent with recent trends, the case for early designation will be weaker than in the central belt.

The honest caveat: this is a forecast based on current data. Dundee's own assessment in 2027 will be the determining input. Landlords shouldn't assume Dundee will never be designated. But the evidence at publication points to Dundee not being among the first wave.

If Dundee is designated

If a designation does come, here is what it means in practice:

CPI + 1%, capped at 6%, as the maximum annual rent increase for a property in the rent control area.
One increase per property per year, maximum.
Build-to-rent (BTR) and mid-market rent (MMR) properties are exempt.
Between tenancies, the cap still applies — you can't reset on a new tenant.

What to do anyway

Whether or not Dundee becomes a designated area, there are things worth doing now:

Tighten your paperwork on eviction grounds. With WTO penalties rising to 36 months' rent from October 2026, documenting your genuine grounds for any notice — and the evidence behind them — is worth more than it used to be.
Make sure your landlord registration is current. Unregistered landlords can't use the tribunal and can't enforce notices properly.
Know your rent increase process. You'll need to serve the right form with the right notice; the April 2027 changes mean tenants can take 30 days to challenge.
Keep your records ready. If Dundee City Council requests rent data, having it organised saves a lot of back-and-forth.

For the broader landlord obligations under Scottish law — deposits, safety certificates, HMO licensing — see our Scottish letting guide. For pricing context, our Dundee rent benchmarks for 2026 has neighbourhood-level figures.

Disclaimer. This post is general information for Dundee landlords. It isn't legal advice, and the rules will continue to evolve as the Act matures. Don't act on anything here without taking proper advice on your specific property and tenancy. We review this post quarterly — the last review date is at the top.

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