The government has given outline details of a new national landlord registration service.
In a statement today it says the database will gradually roll out region by region from December and will give councils access to information to help them spot rogue landlords and take quicker action.
In the future, prospective landlords will also need to register, and tenants will be able to see whether their landlord or prospective landlord has signed up.
In addition, HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC’s) Valuation Office will become responsible for decisions on challenges to rent increases in England, helping people resolve rent disputes more quickly.
While the government develops these reforms, renters who want to challenge a rent increase must still apply to the First-tier Tribunal.
If they do, they will not have to pay the higher rent until the Tribunal has made its final decision.
Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook says: By transferring responsibility for making initial rent determinations to HMRC’s Valuation Office, we will ensure that challenges to proposed rent increases are determined faster and pressure on the tribunal system is reduced, giving tenants and landlords confidence that rent disputes will continue to be resolved efficiently and effectively.
Rollout of a national landlord registration service is an important first step toward establishing our new innovative database of private rented sector properties which will empower tenants, support responsible landlords and help councils enforce our transformative Renters’ Rights Act.
And the government says this is what landlords need to know:
- Landlords in each region across England will be gradually asked to sign up to the register. It will be a legal requirement and risks a fine if not completed.
- These requirements initially only apply to landlords with properties under let, or which become occupied during rollout. Under future legislation, as government rolls out the public interface, landlords will also be required to register any unoccupied properties before marketing them for let. Letting agents and landlords will need to include registration numbers on adverts.
- It will launch on 15 December 2026, starting in the West Midlands and onto other areas over 12 months.
- When an area is called forward to register, landlords with properties in the region will have a three-month period to sign up. All landlords actively letting property will need to have registered by 14 November 2027.
These additional legislation’s can seem overly complex and cause unnecessary delays. Many professionals only see this as creating a database of landlords with fines for those who do not meet the deadlines.
The rouge landlords this is aimed to put in place are likely to not register, however those who will comply are the already compliant landlords who have their gas safe certificates, EPCs, EICRs and deposits protected with their agents keeping things compliant. The burden may seem to land on these already compliant landlords, however all properties will require a unique reference number to be included in any marketing for let. The burden then falls upon local authorities, who are already short staffed to enforce these regulations.
With the Section 21 Notice abolished, rent increments to be reviewed by the valuation office and a tracking of advertised rentals via reference numbers, it would appear the government want to control the private rental market. This coincides with many years of unfavorable changes to the private rental sector that re affective many landlords, from mortgage and tax relief, stamp duty surcharges, alongside many other regulatory rules that are causing many long term landlords to sell as the government continue to overreach into the private rental market.
There has been very little in terms of announcements that help landlords. With many landlords leaving the rental market, supply of rental homes declines and subsequently rents increases. Tenants then pay for all these extra legislation, which is often the opposite of what the government intends, we saw this with the tenant fees act 2019, rents increased within three months.
You can find out more and when you will need to register as the government gradually rollout the registration by region here.
