Government defends £65 fee for PRS Database

The government has admitted that the £65 annual PRS Database fee is higher than the original estimate, but insists the charge remains “fair and sustainable” for landlords.

Responding to a written parliamentary question, Labour peer Baroness Taylor of Stevenage said the £65 annual registration fee, charged per property, would help fund council enforcement activity.

She also said landlords’ privacy concerns would be taken seriously, with future legislation setting out how information held on the database would be accessed and made publicly available.

Balances fairness and sustainability

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage said: “We recognise that the registration fee of £65 has been set at a higher level than the figures included in the full Impact Assessment published with the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. We intend to perform a full Impact Assessment ahead of stage two of implementation where we can consider the impacts and benefits which come from the public interface.

“The government has set the fee at a level that balances fairness and sustainability for landlords with the relevant costs of operating the service and tackling non-compliance in the private rented sector.

“Fee income will support enforcement activity, helping councils build the staff and skills needed to identify and tackle non-compliance, exercise their legal powers, and compliance and drive landlords who persistently break the law out of the sector.”

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage also suggested that bulk payments could be considered for larger landlords, but stopped short of making any commitment or specifying how many properties a landlord would need to own to qualify.

She added: “We know landlords with larger portfolios want enhanced functionality to manage their properties on the service. To fulfil this need, we are allowing a landlord or letting agent organisation to give appropriate members of staff access to manage the rental properties they are responsible for.

“Following launch we will look at integration with systems used by organisational landlords, and will consider the viability of bulk payments for this group. We believe this approach would add greater value than manual bulk uploads, which we have concluded would not offer significant time savings for landlords.”

Councils must be mindful of costs to landlords

She also adds councils must be mindful of costs to landlords and insists the PRS Database and selective licensing serve different purposes.

She said: “We are clear in guidance that local councils should be mindful of any cost impacts to landlords in setting fees for selective licensing schemes, particularly those who are already fully compliant with their obligations.

“Selective licensing is a separate regime to the service, and licence fees set by local councils are designed to ensure that the costs of operating licensing schemes are covered.

“As such, there is no overlap between these fees and registration fees for the service. However, we are continuing to review the use of selective licensing as we develop the Register your rental property service to prevent duplication.”

Landlord privacy concerns

As previously reported by Property118, landlords have raised concerns about privacy and how their personal information and property data will be handled under the PRS Database.

Under the PRS Database, landlords will be required to provide information about their properties, including the address, number of residents and bedrooms, as well as copies of gas, electricity and EPC documents.

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage has now provided further details about how the government intends to address these concerns.

She said: “We are committed to ensuring the service is secure and to protecting the privacy of our users. We are using modern security tools to continuously protect the service, monitor it for vulnerabilities or suspicious activity, and help the team identify and respond to security issues.

“We have been assessing our services against the National Cyber Security Centre Cyber Assessment Framework, conducting penetration testing and working with MHCLG’s Data Protection Officer to produce a Data Protection Impact Assessment, Data Sharing Agreements with local councils, and privacy statements for landlords, local councils and letting agent users.

“Future legislation will set out which landlord and property records will be made available to the public and shared with any further organisations when the public-facing service is launched at a later date.”