New report: A national landlord register for England - how to make it work
Today we’ve published a new report on a national landlord register for England. See the coverage in the Observer.
What’s the issue?
The private rented sector (PRS) in the UK now accounts for around one-fifth of all households. The growth in the PRS, and reports of poor standards, have led to calls for the sector to be further regulated.
Landlord registration is a basis for regulating the sector. Typically, this requires an authority to maintain a register of private landlords, and provides that an unregistered landlord is committing a criminal offence. These registers can then be used to ensure that all properties meet certain standards and target properties for inspection.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have compulsory national registration schemes. England allows local authorities to introduce registration schemes in specific areas, and all ‘houses in multiple occupation’ must be registered - but the vast majority of PRS properties in England remain unregistered.
Registration of landlords had widespread support across the PRS. In May 2021, the government promised to consider the merits of a national landlord register, and a White Paper on rental reform is expected later this autumn.
Our findings
We carried out research on existing selective licensing schemes in around 40 local authorities, and found that:
Less than 8% of the private rented sector in England is currently covered by any registration or licensing requirements. The patchwork of schemes leads to low awareness among landlords and tenants.
Where ‘selective’ licensing schemes exist in England, the fees charged for a five-year licence vary from £350 to £900 - including fees to landlords of up to £470 just to cover administration costs.
The data published by these schemes varied widely in content and format, hugely reducing its value for any research or innovation in the private rented sector.
Yet where local schemes exist, they are broadly effective - with evidence of lower anti-social behaviour and higher standards where schemes are used.
In related research, our friends at Generation Rent found that councils that require landlords to be licensed take more than twice as much enforcement action as those that don’t.
A national compulsory register would address these problems, and could be implemented efficiently and cheaply, allowing local authorities to focus on inspection and enforcement.
Our recommendations
We make the following recommendations:
Create a national, compulsory register. This will create economics of scale which should reduce costs for landlords; allow councils to focus on local enforcement rather than administration; and make the underlying data far more useful.
Make the register public and searchable. This will allow tenants to check their landlord’s status quickly and improve public awareness of the register.
Also publish raw data to support research and innovation. The Government should adopt the model used by other major registers (such as directors at Companies House, and Energy Performance Certificates), publishing structured data alongside the searchable register.
Use identifiers to save time. Using UPRNs and corporate identifiers will allow the database to be integrated with other property databases, such as on EPCs deposit protection schemes.
Don’t ask for unnecessary information. The Government should consult with stakeholders to check which data will be most useful - we found that most stakeholders suggested including rent levels. But much property-related information is already held in public datasets elsewhere.
Record tenancy type, including lodgers. The PRS is complex and evolving quickly. We suggest recording tenancy type and ensuring that lodgers are included.
Prepare for an initial surge of applications. Most existing schemes found they received more applications than expected, particularly in the early days of the scheme.
Give local authorities the resources to inspect and enforce. A national register would remove administrative burden from councils, but local authorities still need the resources to hold inspections and use their local knowledge.
A national register in England would support higher standards across the private rented sector. And crucially, with these recommendations, it can be implemented efficiently and cheaply, without creating significant burdens or costs for landlords.
Read the report
Download the full report (PDF).
Contact us
This report was written by Gideon Leibowitz and Anna Powell-Smith from the Centre for Public Data. We are a non-partisan, non-profit organisation that works to improve the quality of the UK’s public data. If you’re interested in the issues raised here, we’d be delighted to talk to you: contact@centreforpublicdata.org.