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What the planned Private Rented Sector Database means for landlords in England: the draft regional timetable, where the law stands today, why a court may be unable to make a possession order while an entry is not active, the two exempt grounds, and what to put in a possession bundle.
Full Transcript
If you let a home in England, you will have heard about a new landlord database. Here is the short version. The law behind it has been passed, but the duty to register is not yet in force. And once it is, it will matter in court, because an unregistered landlord may be unable to get a possession order. Let us take it step by step.
The Private Rented Sector Database, the PRS Database, will be a national register of private rented homes and their landlords in England. The government's service is called Register your rental property. Each landlord and each property will get an entry and a unique identifier. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 provides for it, and social housing is outside it.
Registration is announced to open on 15 December 2026, with regions called forward in turn. The West Midlands comes first. Then the East of England in January, the East Midlands in February, the South East in March, Yorkshire and Humber in April, the North West in May, the North East in June, London in July, and the South West in August 2027. Each region gets a three-month window, and the date follows where the property is, not where you live. These dates come from draft regulations and government guidance. Today, none of them is a legal deadline.
So where does the law stand today? The duty to register, in section 82 of the Act, is not in force. The regulations have only been laid in draft. And the fee, which government guidance puts at £65 a year for each property, is not set in legislation either. Today, no landlord is in breach of a duty to register, and no possession claim can fail for that reason.
Here is why it matters for possession. Once it is in force, section 90 will insert a new subsection into the Housing Act 1988. The court may not make a possession order while the landlord is in breach of the duty to have an active landlord entry and an active dwelling entry. The bar is on the order, not on the notice. An unregistered landlord can still serve a Section 8 notice. What they cannot get, while the breach continues, is the order, except on the two grounds we come to next. If both entries are active by the time the court makes the order, this bar no longer applies.
Only two grounds are exempt: Ground 7A, serious anti-social behaviour, and Ground 14, nuisance or annoyance. Every other ground is caught, including Ground 8 for rent arrears. The registration bar sits alongside the deposit bar in section 215 of the Housing Act 2004, which is already in force. You may need to clear both.
If you are the landlord, build it into your bundle. Include your landlord identifier and the property identifier. Show that both entries are active, with dates. Note the renewal date, because under the draft regulations an entry not renewed in time becomes inactive, and the bar could apply again. If there are joint landlords, cover each one. And keep the deposit evidence beside it. BundleCreator is designed to help you set all of this out in one clear, ordered bundle.
Diarise your region's dates, but check them again before you rely on them, because the regulations are still draft. This is general information, not legal advice. Create your bundle with a 7-day trial, and read the full guide on BundleCreator.co.