I built RentersActReady for small agents and self-managing landlords expected to handle Phase 1 without an in-house compliance team.

Why I built it

Two things about the Phase 1 commencement landscape didn't add up.

One — who the obligations land on. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 doesn't scale its obligations to firm size. A sole-operator letting agent with 47 properties on management has the same Section 21 transition, the same Form 4A serve-on-all-tenants mechanics, the same Written Statement requirement, and the same banning-order register checks as a 50-staff agency with an in-house compliance team. Goodlord's October 2025 State of the Lettings Industry survey put the share of sole-operator agents who felt “very prepared” for commencement at 4%. The other 96% had no obvious place to go.

Two — what was actually on offer.There's no affordable interactive compliance tool for sole-op letting agents. The market splits between free council PDFs and static editorial guides (no logic, no audit trail, no deadline tracking) and enterprise platforms at £200+/mo built for letting groups with 1,000+ properties. Nothing serves the 10-100 portfolio. Free template downloads don't track deadlines, don't score gaps, and don't cite the statute behind the action. Enterprise platforms cost more than a sole-operator's margin per property. The middle was empty.

So I built it: a structured readiness scorer mapped to the Act, a prioritised action list sorted by deadline, every claim cited to legislation.gov.uk or the relevant GOV.UK guidance, and a multi-property dashboard so a 30-property portfolio can be assessed and tracked without 30 separate spreadsheets.

I run Crocker Digital as a small UK software company, not a regulated firm. The product's value is its verifiable behaviour— same answers, same score, every time; every action item linked back to the source — not anyone's job title.

What I built

A rule engine. You answer 17 scored questions. Together they cover every Phase 1 obligation: Section 21 transition, AST conversion, Form 4A rent increases, the rent-bidding ban, the rent-advance cap, safety certificates, deposit protection, the new Written Statement requirement, Section 48 notice address, and council enforcement history (selective licensing breaches and banning-order register checks).

Each scored question maps to a specific RRA 2025 section. Every option carries a rationale, and every rationale links to the relevant legislation.gov.uk provision — or to the GOV.UK guidance page where that's the authoritative source (e.g. prescribed forms).

Same answers, same score, every time. There's no AI black box guessing — the rule logic is published as raw JSON for anyone who wants to check it. The output is a prioritised action list sorted by deadline. That's what gets shown and tracked.

Read the methodology →

Open the raw rule-engine JSON for the full rule definitions.

What I don't do

• Not legal advice. Everything the product produces is general compliance guidance derived from public regulatory text. For active enforcement, disputes, or notice drafting under Section 8, talk to a housing solicitor.
• Not a regulated firm. Crocker Digital is not regulated by the SRA or the Council for Licensed Conveyancers. Everything I surface cites legislation.gov.uk or the relevant GOV.UK guidance.
• No affiliate fees, no kickbacks.I don't take payment from solicitors, gas engineers, deposit schemes, insurers, or any third party for being mentioned in the product. Recommendations are based on what the legislation says, not who's paying me.

How I keep it current

The rule engine is version-tagged (currently v1.1.0). When a relevant statutory instrument, prescribed form, or guidance update changes the rules, I bump the version and re-score the affected assessments. Last verified against legislation.gov.uk: 2026-04-16. Next scheduled review: 2026-07-15.

Who's behind it

I'm Brian Crocker. I built and maintain RentersActReady, and I'm the sole director of Crocker Digital Ltd — the UK software company that publishes it. The site is one of a small portfolio of compliance-focused products I've built for under-served UK micro-businesses; this one is for sole-operator letting agents and self-managing landlords because the Renters' Rights Act handed that group a lot of new obligations and very little affordable tooling. If you email support@rentersactready.co.uk, I'm the person who answers — not a support queue.

• Crocker Digital Ltd — registered in England & Wales, Company No. 17008789. Registered office: 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ.
• Registered with the Information Commissioner's Office — ICO ZC128626.

For where your data sits, who processes it, and how long I keep it, see the subprocessors and retention policy pages.

Contact

Email support@rentersactready.co.uk. I answer everything myself. Built and maintained by Crocker Digital Ltd in the UK.

Phase timings and statutory deadlines verified 2026-04-16 against the GOV.UK Renters' Rights Act 2025 implementation roadmap.