Private Rented Sector Database: the £65 fee, regional deadlines and a readiness checklist.

Registration periods by region

The draft Private Rented Sector Database Regulations 2026 bring the registration rules in one region at a time, from the start dates in regulation 1. Regions are defined by council area in Schedule 1 to the draft, as the areas stood on 15 December 2026. MHCLG's guidance for landlords, published on 29 October 2026, gives each region a three-month registration period: occupied properties in a region must be registered before midnight on its end date.

You can register before your region opens, so a landlord with homes in several regions can register them all at once, provided none is registered after its region's end date. Use the property's postcode to find its council, and the guidance's list of regions and councils to find the region. During the rollout, 15 December 2026 to 14 November 2027, only homes that are let, or become let in that period, need registering. Registering empty homes before marketing them, and showing registration numbers in adverts, will be required later.

Those dates are not yet law. The draft Regulations need approval by both Houses of Parliament. A Commons Delegated Legislation Committee and the Lords Grand Committee both considered them on 28 October 2026. The House of Lords approved them on 4 November 2026. In the Commons the approval motion was challenged on 3 November and the vote was deferred to 4 November, and on 10 November 2026 the Regulations had still not been made. The explanatory memorandum says a separate instrument, the Renters' Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 4) Regulations 2026, will bring the database duties in the Act into force. It had not been published on legislation.gov.uk when we checked on 10 November 2026.

Who must register

The duty falls on a "residential landlord": the landlord of a home in England let on an assured tenancy under the Housing Act 1988 or a regulated tenancy under the Rent Act 1977, where the home is not social housing (section 63 of the Act). This includes organisations that let homes, such as companies, charities and trusts. Supported exempt accommodation is out of scope. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland keep their own landlord registers; the explanatory memorandum says the database applies in England.

Each landlord makes a landlord entry, and each rented home needs a dwelling entry linked to it. You register with GOV.UK One Login, or on paper if you do not have digital access.

• Joint landlords: each must register. One registers the property and invites the others. Anyone who owns part of a rented home and is entitled to possession must register as a joint landlord, even if they are not named on the tenancy agreement.
• HMOs: a house in multiple occupation with an HMO licence is registered once for the whole property. You do not register each room.
• Letting and managing agents: the landlord must start the registration. Once the property has a registration number and is occupied, an agent can provide the tenancy and health and safety information (regulations 4(5) and 7(2) of the draft), but the landlord stays responsible for completing the record within 28 days.
• Third parties: only in limited cases, for example where the landlord has died or is incapacitated, or where a mortgage lender needs a court order for possession of an unregistered home.

Readiness checklist: what to have ready

Schedules 2 and 3 to the draft Regulations list what each entry must contain. The guidance says you will be asked for evidence of the gas safety certificate (if the home has a gas supply), the electrical safety certificate and the EPC, information about the tenancy including the rent, and any HMO or other licence. You can give it with the property details or within 28 days of registering. If you do not, the property registration may be deactivated, which can put you in breach while the home is let; your landlord registration is also deactivated if you have no active properties.

The draft list does not ask for tenancy deposit details or proof of membership of a landlord redress scheme. It does ask for the EICR's next-inspection date, so check that date on each report now; our guide to the EICR changes due on 30 November 2026 explains what else is moving.

Fees, renewals and keeping entries current

• Fee: £65 per property a year, not subject to VAT. You pay when you register each property and then every year to keep it on the service. Registering yourself as a landlord and updating your records are free. Regulation 14 of the draft leaves the amount to the database operator; MHCLG, which runs the service, set it in its guidance of 29 October 2026, and says the fee is tax-deductible.
• Renewal: one date for all your properties, a year after you register the first. A property you add later shares that date.
• Updates: within 28 days of any information changing or expiring, including occupancy and safety certificates.
• Lapsed landlord entry: under the draft, a landlord entry becomes inactive if no dwelling entry is linked to it within 3 months.

During the rollout the fee is reduced pro rata, so that no one pays for days before 15 November 2027, when every landlord should be registered. The service works out the first payment as (£65 ÷ days in the year) × (days to the renewal date − days before 15 November 2027), rounded down to the penny. The guidance gives two worked examples:

Penalties and possession

Section 82 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 says a home must not be marketed for letting without active landlord and dwelling entries, that written adverts must include both unique identifiers, and that a landlord must keep active, up-to-date entries for each let home; the guidance says the marketing and advert rules will apply later, once that requirement comes into force. Under section 91, a council can impose a civil penalty of up to £7,000 for failing to register, and up to £40,000 for an offence under section 92: knowingly or recklessly giving false or misleading information, carrying on with a breach 28 days after a penalty, or a further breach within five years.

Tenants get a remedy too. From 15 December 2026, the guidance says, a tenant can apply to the First-tier Tribunal for a rent repayment order where a landlord has knowingly or recklessly given false or misleading information to the service, or has committed continuing or repeated breaches, but only once the registration period for the tenant's region has opened.

Section 90 adds that a court may not make a possession order while the landlord is in breach of the duty to be registered, unless the ground is Ground 7A or Ground 14 (anti-social behaviour). A breach does not make the tenancy itself invalid.

The database and the Landlord Ombudsman

They are separate schemes under Part 2 of the same Act. The government's guide to the Act says all private landlords with assured or regulated tenancies will have to join a new Private Rented Sector Landlord Ombudsman, including those who use a managing agent. The Private Landlord Redress Schemes (Approval and Designation) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/1033), in force since 17 September 2026, set how such a scheme is approved or designated; they do not set a date for landlords to join, and the guide says landlords will be given notice of it. Registering on the database does not make you a member of the Ombudsman scheme.

Where PropertySurvey Pro fits

• Property details on site: record each room's condition, with photos and notes, so bedroom counts and the property type are confirmed by someone who has been inside.
• EPC details on the report: look up the certificate on the GOV.UK register and show the rating, certificate number and valid-until date on the PDF. How the EPC lookup works.
• Gas and electrical records: during the inspection, photograph the gas safety certificate and the consumer unit's test label, and note each issue and next-due date in the notes. The plant and meter cupboard checklist flags a missing electrical test label. Area checklists.
• Services noted: reusable wording for the consumer unit, gas supply and appliances, so the report can flag an EICR or gas safety record that is due. Smart Builder templates.
• Dated evidence (Pro): print the date and time each photo was taken or added.
• On site and offline: the PDF is built on your device before you leave.

The app does not register properties or connect to the government's service. It gives you a dated record of the home and its certificate dates to check your registration against, and to update within 28 days when a certificate is renewed.