Can a letting agent use ChatGPT for tenant emails, property descriptions and notices? Prices, data terms and three prompts

Yes for first drafts of emails and property descriptions, as long as the agency pays for a business plan and a person checks every word before it goes out. No for notices: a Section 8 notice or a rent increase goes on a government form whose wording you must not change.

We read each vendor's own pricing and data pages in a browser on 1 October 2026. We have not tested how well any of the four writes, so this page covers price and data terms only.

What a small agency would pay

The example is an office of four: an owner, two negotiators and a property manager.

The four are not like for like. Google's price buys the whole Workspace suite, email included. Microsoft's is an add-on, so the Microsoft 365 subscription comes on top. OpenAI's page does not say whether VAT is included, and Anthropic's UK prices include 20% VAT, so its £72 is £60 before it. Google's page also showed a three-month introductory discount, which we have left out.

What each vendor says about your data

An agency decides how its tenants' and landlords' personal data is used, and Article 28 of the UK GDPR says a supplier that handles that data for you must be under a contract that binds it to your instructions. A personal account a negotiator pays for has no such contract with the agency. On a business plan, take names and bank details out before you paste anyway, because the draft rarely needs them.

Three prompts that work

1. Property description. "Write a 120-word description for a rental listing using only the facts below. Do not add features, distances or praise that are not in my notes. Give the rent as £[rent] a month and do not invite offers. Plain UK English. [Paste your notes: rooms, floor, heating, parking, EPC band, deposit, date available.]"
2. Reply to a repair report. "Draft a reply to the tenant message below. Say we logged the repair today, that the next step is [step], and that they will hear from us by [day]. Under 120 words, polite, no promises beyond those two points. [Paste the message with the name and address removed.]"
3. Summary of a long complaint. "Turn the email chain below into a dated timeline: what was reported, what we did, what is still open. List every question the sender asked that has not been answered. Do not say who is right. [Paste the chain with names and addresses removed.]"

Check each result against the file before it leaves the office. A model fills gaps with something plausible, such as a parking space the flat does not have. The "do not invite offers" line is there because rental bidding has been banned since 1 May 2026; our website audit lists the other phrases to avoid.

The job not to hand over: notices

A Section 8 notice is Form 3A. A rent increase is Form 4A. GOV.UK's forms page says: "Do not change the wording of these forms unless the form says you can. If you change the wording, the form may not be valid." A notice in a chatbot's own words is not the form.

The rules also changed on 1 May 2026, and a general model may still describe Section 21 or the old two-month arrears threshold. We did not test for this. Download the form, and take the dates from our guides to Section 8 grounds and notice periods and Form 4A. For arrears letters, which are not notices, the arrears letter template gives fixed wording with the figures filled in.

What regulators and agents have said

The Information Commissioner's Office has a detailed "Guidance on AI and data protection", last updated on 15 March 2023 and now marked as under review because of the Data (Use and Access) Act. The ICO names generative AI among its current areas of focus. We found nothing on its AI pages written for letting agents.

Agents draw a similar line themselves. A Propoly poll reported by Letting Agent Today on 24 September 2026 found lettings staff wanted AI for compliance administration, document review and summarising long email chains, and did not want it handling difficult conversations or sensitive tenant circumstances.

A house rule to pin up

• Business accounts only. No tenant, applicant or landlord details in a personal account.
• A named person reads, corrects and sends. The tool never sends.
• Notices go on the government form, with dates checked by a person.

Overlyft is not one of these chat tools and is not compared here. Its staff roles draft landlord updates and arrears letters from the agency's own records for a property manager to approve.

This is general information for England, not legal advice.