On 1 December 2022 the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 came into force and replaced the entire vocabulary of renting in Wales. Not a reform of tenancies — a replacement of them.
English landlords with Welsh property routinely use the wrong words, and the words are not cosmetic: they carry different rules.
The translation
| England | Wales |
|---|---|
| Tenancy / licence | Occupation contract |
| Tenant | Contract-holder |
| Assured shorthold tenancy | Standard contract |
| Social / assured tenancy | Secure contract |
| Tenancy agreement | Written statement |
The change is not only terminological. Licences became contracts. Arrangements that in England would be licences rather than tenancies — lodgers in some circumstances, supported accommodation — are occupation contracts in Wales, with the protections that carries.
The two contract types
Standard contract
The default for private landlords. Roughly where an AST sat, but with the Welsh rules on notice, fitness and the written statement attached.
Secure contract
The default for community landlords — councils and registered social landlords. Greater security of tenure. A private landlord will rarely grant one, but may inherit one on acquiring a property.
Everything converted, automatically
Tenancies existing on 1 December 2022 converted to occupation contracts on that date. Landlords did not opt in and could not opt out. If you have held a Welsh property since before December 2022, your tenant became a contract-holder whether or not anybody told you.
Converted contracts carried a deadline to issue a written statement of the new terms — see the written statement in Wales, which is also where the cost of missing it sits.
Joint contract-holders, and the change that matters
Wales allows a joint contract-holder to be added or removed without ending the contract. In England a change of sharers generally means a surrender and a new tenancy, with a fresh deposit, fresh prescribed information and a fresh start on everything.
For a shared house this is a genuine simplification and it is regularly missed by landlords applying English habits.
Why the vocabulary is worth learning properly
Because the documents have to use it. A written statement that calls the occupier a "tenant" and the arrangement a "tenancy" is describing a legal relationship that does not exist in Wales, and it will not contain the terms the Act requires — which are set out by reference to occupation contracts, not tenancies.
Serving an English AST on a Welsh property is not a stylistic error. It is a document that fails to do the job the statute requires of it.
Check what your document actually says. The tenancy agreement checker reads it against current legislation and cites the Act and section for every finding.
Information tool, not legal advice.