For two years the private rented database and the landlord ombudsman were the two parts of the Renters’ Rights Act that landlords could safely file under “later”. That is no longer true. The database now has a name, a fee, a legal framework and a start date: the Register your rental property service opens on 15 December 2026, and by 14 November 2027 every landlord actively letting in England must be on it.
The ombudsman is still the looser half of the pair. The regulations that set up the redress framework were laid before Parliament in April 2026, but no scheme administrator has been appointed and mandatory membership is not expected until 2028.
This guide sets out what has actually been confirmed, region by region, what registration will cost and what it will ask you for, and what happens to your possession rights if you miss your deadline. Because with Section 21 gone, an unregistered landlord is close to a landlord who cannot evict at all.
Key takeaways
- The PRS Database opens on 15 December 2026, starting with the West Midlands, and rolls out one region a month until August 2027.
- Each region gets a three-month window to register. The final national deadline is 14 November 2027.
- Registering yourself as a landlord is free. Each property costs £65 a year, with the first year pro-rated during the rollout.
- Let or advertise without an active registration and you face a civil penalty of up to £7,000, rising to £40,000 or prosecution for repeat or deliberate breaches.
- Most seriously, a court cannot grant you possession while you are unregistered — only Ground 7A and Ground 14 (anti-social behaviour) are carved out.
- The PRS Landlord Ombudsman remains pencilled in for 2028. Membership will be compulsory for every private landlord, including those who use a managing agent.
Where the Renters’ Rights Act has got to
The tenancy reforms landed first. Since 1 May 2026, fixed terms and assured shorthold tenancies no longer exist in England. Every assured tenancy is periodic from day one, Section 21 has gone, rent can only be raised once a year by a Section 13 notice, and the rules on pets, bidding wars and discrimination against benefit claimants and families all apply.
A second date closed the transitional door. From 1 August 2026 you can no longer apply to the court for possession on a Section 21 or Section 8 notice that was served before the Act commenced. Anything still running from the old regime had to be in front of a judge by then.
The database and the ombudsman were always the second phase, and they are the two that change your admin rather than your tenancies. If you want the whole picture in one place, our complete Renters’ Rights Act landlord checklist tracks every measure and its status.
The PRS Database: what it is and when it reaches you
The Private Rented Sector Database is a national register of landlords and rented dwellings in England, created by Part 2 of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 and brought to life by the Private Rented Sector Database Regulations 2026. Tenants will be able to look up a property before they rent it; councils will use it to target enforcement; and the government will finally have a count of who is letting what.
You will access it through the government’s Register your rental property service using a GOV.UK One Login. Registration has two parts: a landlord entry for you, and a separate dwelling entry for each property you let.
It applies to landlords of assured and regulated tenancies in England. Genuine holiday lets and licensed supported exempt accommodation sit outside it, but ordinary buy-to-lets, HMOs and company lets to individuals are all in scope.
The regional rollout dates
Rather than opening to every landlord in England at once, the service opens one region a month. Your deadline is set by where the property is, not where you live — so a landlord in Surrey with a flat in Birmingham is on the West Midlands clock.
| Region | Registration opens | Deadline to be registered |
|---|---|---|
| West Midlands | 15 December 2026 | 14 March 2027 |
| East of England | 15 January 2027 | 14 April 2027 |
| East Midlands | 15 February 2027 | 14 May 2027 |
| South East | 15 March 2027 | 14 June 2027 |
| Yorkshire and the Humber | 15 April 2027 | 14 July 2027 |
| North West | 15 May 2027 | 14 August 2027 |
| North East | 15 June 2027 | 14 September 2027 |
| London | 15 July 2027 | 14 October 2027 |
| South West | 15 August 2027 | 14 November 2027 |
Regional rollout of the Register your rental property service. Each region has a three-month registration window.
If you hold properties across several regions you do not have to wait for each one. Once the service is live on 15 December 2026 you can register a mixed portfolio in a single session, which is far less painful than logging back in nine months running.
What it costs
Creating your landlord entry is free. Each dwelling entry costs £65 a year and has to be renewed annually. The fee is per property, not per owner — joint owners of the same flat pay once between them, not £65 each.
Because the rollout runs across twelve months, first-year fees are pro-rated so that landlords who register early are not paying for months of registration the scheme has not yet delivered. Budget £65 per property per year as an ongoing running cost from 2027 onwards — on a five-property portfolio that is £325 a year, roughly the price of one gas safety check.
What you have to upload
The landlord entry is identity-level information: your full name, date of birth, residential address and contact details. Companies and trusts give their Companies House or charity number plus details of directors or trustees.
The dwelling entry is where the work is. Expect to provide:
- The address, property type and tenure (freehold, leasehold or commonhold), plus superior landlord or freeholder details where relevant.
- Whether it is currently let, the number of households and occupiers, and the number of bedrooms.
- Whether it is furnished, the rent and how often it is paid, and which bills are included.
- Whether the dwelling needs an HMO or selective licence, and the licence number if it has one.
- Your gas safety record and its issue date, with the entry to be updated when a new record is issued.
- Your Electrical Installation Condition Report or installation certificate, with its expiry date.
- Confirmation of a valid Energy Performance Certificate.
None of this is information a compliant landlord does not already hold. The problem is that most landlords hold it in three different places — an email folder, a filing cabinet and the agent’s system — and the database wants it in one, on a deadline. Our guide to how landlords register on the PRS Database walks through the service screen by screen.
What happens if you miss your deadline
There are two layers of consequence, and the second is far worse than the first.
Financial penalties. Letting or marketing a property without an active registration exposes you to a civil penalty of up to £7,000 imposed by the local council. Knowingly providing false or misleading information, or continuing to breach after a rectification period, takes you into the higher tier: a penalty of up to £40,000 or criminal prosecution. Rent repayment orders of up to two years’ rent are also on the table.
Loss of possession rights. This is the part that should concentrate the mind. While you are not properly registered, the court cannot make a possession order against your tenant on any ground except Ground 7A (serious criminal or anti-social behaviour) and Ground 14 (nuisance and anti-social behaviour). Rent arrears, selling up, moving back in — all of it is blocked until the register is in order.
Before May 2026 that would have been survivable, because Section 21 offered a route around most problems. It does not any more. Registration has quietly become the same kind of gateway obligation as deposit protection: cheap and dull to get right, ruinous to get wrong, and only noticed at the moment you need the court.
The Landlord Ombudsman: confirmed, and not yet confirmed
The Act also creates a Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman — a single, free, binding redress route for tenants who have a complaint about how a landlord has behaved. Tenants currently have nowhere to go short of the council or the county court unless their landlord happens to use an agent that belongs to a redress scheme. The ombudsman closes that gap.
What is settled:
- Membership will be compulsory for every private landlord letting on an assured or regulated tenancy in England, whether or not they use a managing agent.
- Decisions will be binding on the landlord, and the ombudsman will be able to require an apology, an explanation, remedial action or compensation of up to £25,000.
- Failing to join carries the same penalty structure as the database — up to £7,000, rising to £40,000 for repeated breaches, plus exposure to a rent repayment order of up to two years’ rent.
What is not settled: who will run it, what it will cost and exactly when it starts. The government has said the existing Housing Ombudsman Service looks best placed to deliver it, but no formal appointment has been made. The membership fee is required by the regulations to be “fair and proportionate” but has not been set. The implementation roadmap points to 2028, with a commitment to give landlords notice before membership becomes mandatory.
Treat 2028 as a planning assumption rather than a date in the diary. Our explainer on how landlord ombudsman complaints will work covers the process in detail.
One more change worth watching
Alongside the database announcement, the government confirmed it intends to move rent-increase challenges away from the First-tier Tribunal and to the Valuation Office Agency, part of HMRC. The aim is to clear a tribunal that has been overwhelmed since Section 13 became the only route to raising rent. The detail is still to come, so do not change how you serve rent increases yet — but if you have had a Section 13 challenge stuck in the queue, expect the process to look different before long.
What to do before December 2026
Nothing here needs a lawyer. It needs an afternoon and a folder.
Getting registration-ready, step by step
Use the table above. The property’s region sets the deadline, not yours.
Use an email address you will still control in five years, not an agent’s.
Gas safety record, EICR, EPC, licence number, deposit certificate, tenancy agreement.
An expired EICR or a missing EPC becomes a public record once you register.
If an agent manages the let, put in writing who submits and who keeps it renewed.
That last point matters more than it looks. The duty to register sits with the landlord. An agent can do the typing, but if the entry lapses it is your possession rights that disappear, not theirs. Put the renewal date in your own calendar as well as the agent’s.
The bottom line
The database is the bigger of the two changes, and it arrives first. It costs little, asks for nothing you should not already have, and carries a penalty out of all proportion to the effort: an unregistered landlord in a post-Section 21 world is a landlord who cannot get possession. The ombudsman is real but still loose, and 2028 is far enough away that the sensible response is to keep an eye on it rather than plan around it.
If you do one thing this month, make it the folder. Every landlord who struggles with registration in 2027 will struggle for the same reason — not because the form is hard, but because the paperwork was never in one place to begin with.
Frequently asked questions
When exactly does the PRS Database open?
The Register your rental property service opens on 15 December 2026 for properties in the West Midlands, then one further region each month until the South West opens on 15 August 2027. Every landlord actively letting must be registered by 14 November 2027 at the latest.
How much does registration cost?
Your landlord entry is free. Each property costs £65 a year, renewable annually, charged once per dwelling regardless of how many joint owners there are. First-year fees are pro-rated during the regional rollout.
Can I register before my region opens?
Yes. Once the service goes live on 15 December 2026 you can register properties in any region, which is the practical approach if your portfolio spans several. You cannot be penalised before your region’s deadline, but there is no advantage in waiting.
What happens if I don’t register?
Councils can impose a civil penalty of up to £7,000 for letting or advertising without an active registration, rising to £40,000 or prosecution for repeat or deliberate breaches. More importantly, the court cannot grant you a possession order on any ground other than Ground 7A or Ground 14 while you remain unregistered.
Does my letting agent register on my behalf?
An agent can complete the registration for you, but the legal duty remains yours. If the entry is inaccurate or lapses, enforcement and the loss of possession rights land on you. Agree in writing who submits and who renews it.
When does joining the Landlord Ombudsman become compulsory?
The government’s implementation roadmap points to 2028, and it has committed to giving landlords notice beforehand. The framework regulations were laid in April 2026 but no scheme administrator has been appointed and no membership fee has been set.
Are holiday lets and lodgers covered by the database?
No. The requirement applies to assured and regulated tenancies in England. Genuine short-term holiday lets, resident-landlord lodger arrangements and licensed supported exempt accommodation fall outside it, although other rules may still apply to them.
Written by The Landlords Portal Team, who track private rented sector legislation in England for landlords managing their own portfolios. This article is general information, not legal advice — dates and figures reflect the position at the time of writing, and secondary legislation under the Renters’ Rights Act is still being made. Check GOV.UK or take advice before acting on it.
