Rollout dates across England for new landlord registration service set out

With a landlord registration service getting rolled out from December, Professor Sukhninder Panesar, head of law at Bucks New University, insists there needs to be a balance between transparency and privacy.

He said: “The new Private Rented Sector Database is an important part of the Government’s wider reforms to the private rented sector.

“Its purpose is to bring greater transparency by creating a central record of landlords and their properties, while giving tenants and local authorities better access to information.

“For tenants, the database should provide greater confidence that the property they are renting, or considering renting, is registered and that the landlord is complying with their legal obligations.

“For local authorities, having access to more comprehensive information should make it easier to identify landlords who are failing to comply with the law and take appropriate enforcement action.

“There is, however, an important balance to be struck between transparency and privacy. The database will contain significant personal and property information about landlords, so appropriate safeguards will be needed to ensure that information is only made publicly available where there is a legitimate reason for doing so.

“The effectiveness of the scheme will ultimately depend not simply on registration, but on enforcement. The prospect of significant financial penalties for failing to register provides an incentive for landlords to comply, but the database will only deliver meaningful protection for tenants if the information held on it is accurate, kept up to date and used effectively by local authorities.

“The phased rollout across England should provide an opportunity to identify any practical difficulties and address them before the system is fully implemented.”