The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 establishes a Private Rented Sector Database, now presented by government as the “Register your rental property” service.

Published: 19 October 2026
Authors: Simon Foster

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 establishes a Private Rented Sector Database, now presented by government as the “Register your rental property” service. Draft Regulations 2026 have been published setting out the requirements for registration, and although there is a chance that the detail of the proposals will change before they are made law, landlords should take note of the relevant deadlines for registration and start preparing now.

What are the changes?

The service first opens for business on 15 December 2026 for properties let on assured or regulated tenancies in the West Midlands, and will roll out region by region across England, with the final deadline falling on 14 November 2027.

Landlords will have three months from the date registration opens for the relevant region to complete their entry. The relevant deadline is linked to the location of the property, so operators with geographically diverse portfolios may need to manage several registration windows in parallel (although in practice details for any property can be submitted from 15 December 2026).

For now, only properties which are let (or which become let during the rollout period) must be registered. Future legislation is anticipated to also require all landlords to register unoccupied properties before marketing them for rent, and to require the landlord and property identifiers to be included in advertisements.

What are the consequences of breach?

Failure to register the landlord or the dwelling, and to keep the entry updated, will mean that:

• the landlord cannot market the dwelling to let – if it does so in breach, it may be liable for a fine of up to £7,000 for a first offence, with additional penalties for continuing breaches
• the court cannot make an order for possession, unless the landlord is relying on Ground 7A or 14 (where the tenant has committed an offence or engaged in anti-social behaviour)

Landlords will also be liable for a fine if they knowingly or recklessly provide information which is false or misleading in a material respect. If the landlord is a company, an officer of the company can also be liable as an individual.

What are the issues?

Each landlord and each dwelling requires registration separately, including copies of in-date EPC, electrical and gas safety certificates.  We set out in full the information required, below.

Registration is not a one-off exercise, however. Entries must be renewed annually, with a fee payable on each occasion.

In addition, where information or documents relating to a landlord or dwelling become inaccurate, expired or otherwise out of date, the entry must be updated within 28 days. This includes renewal of EPCs, gas safety certificates and electrical safety reports. There does not appear to be a fee for updating information.

This is a reasonably simple task for landlords with one or two properties. However, the practical significance of this new unit-by-unit compliance obligation lies in scale.

For professional BTR operators who may have thousands of units in scope, this presents a significant administrative burden:

• volume: every dwelling requires its own entry, so a single scheme may generate hundreds of registrations.
• delegation: while managing agents and property managers can add and update limited tenancy details and relevant compliance documents, responsibility for registration remains with the landlord. The landlord must create a landlord entry, create the entries for each dwelling, verify the information submitted by its agents and pay the relevant fee.
• consistency: whether registration is managed by the operator or its agents, data concerning the landlord, property, occupancy, tenancy and rent will need to be accurate and readily retrievable.
• cost: the annual fee is £65 per property, which will not fall within the Tenant Fees Act 2019 and so is not recoverable from tenants. A 1,000-unit portfolio would therefore face £65,000 each year if every unit is in scope. There is no suggestion yet that any bulk discount will be available, although we are aware that industry bodies such as RE:UK are lobbying for this to be considered before the final form of the regulations is brought into force.

How could the system be improved for BTR operators?

The point of the database, and the RRA in general, is protection of residential tenants. It will allow local authorities and tenants to easily see which landlords are complying with their legal obligations. However, for those landlords with huge numbers of tenancies, is there a better way to structure this protection?

Those familiar with the RRA will be aware that there is an exemption from many of its provisions for some providers of purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) where the provider or its agent managing the property is an active member of a registered code of practice. The Codes are national accreditation schemes which set and check compliance with professional standards of management for PBSA buildings.

The BTR Alliance, formed in 2025 between the Association for Rental Living and Real Estate: UK (then the British Property Foundation), is in the process of developing a similar code for the BTR sector. Compliance with such a Code could provide the basis for an exemption for operators who are members of a BTR-focussed professional framework, which would remove red tape without compromising standards.

What to do now

We do not anticipate any major changes to the draft regulations, so operators should start mapping their units and testing their data now. Accurate and consistent record-keeping (and confirming the responsibility and accountability) will speed up the process of registration, and certificates must be current, readily retrievable and correctly matched to the relevant dwelling.

It will be well worth planning now for the operational changes required for new lettings, renewals and future pre-marketing requirements, to embed these into business-as-usual processes.