Report: A national landlord register for England - how to make it work

October 2021

Gideon Leibowitz and Anna Powell-Smith

Our new report, A national landlord register for England - how to make it work, contains new research and recommendations for implementing landlord registers to support better outcomes for landlords, local authorities and tenants.

About the issue

Selective licensing schemes, which require all landlords in an area to register, have been widely implemented in England, but with little consistency, which makes them more burdensome and less effective.

Summary of findings

We gathered data on 40 selective licensing schemes implemented by English local authorities, plus three compulsory licensing schemes in other nations, via research and Freedom of Information requests.
From our research, we estimate that circa 197,000 properties in England are currently registered in selective schemes. Just 7.4% of the private rented sector in England is covered by registration or licensing requirements, under a patchwork of different schemes.
Fees charged by selective schemes are highly variable, ranging from £350 to £900 - and charges of up to £470 per landlord just to cover the administration costs of the scheme.
The data published by selective registers varied widely in content and format, hugely reducing its value for research or innovation.
We find that selective licensing schemes have been broadly effective, with evidence of lower anti-social behaviour and higher standards where schemes are used.
However, schemes are hampered by high fees, burdensome requirements, and low inspection rates. Local authorities have struggled with high setup costs, poor existing data, and no economies of scale.

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 to the Government

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, it can be implemented efficiently and cheaply, without creating significant burdens or costs for landlords.