Is the government’s PRS Database registration putting landlords at risk?

Reply to the comment left by David at 25/09/2026 – 20:10
Yes you are probably right here. They really don’t care about landlords and it is why we have mainly exited. Hope to have the last English one gone soon.

Gary, after someone found your home 150 miles away and went at your brakes, the worry is entirely rational. But it’s worth separating what the regulations require from what this thread assumes.

Registering and publishing aren’t the same thing. Individual landlords do have to supply name, date of birth, residential address, phone and email. Which of those the public sees isn’t set by any regulation made yet. The explanatory memorandum to the Private Rented Sector Database Regulations 2026 says a further statutory instrument will specify what’s made publicly available, and that public access only switches on after registration launches. That instrument hasn’t been laid. So at go-live there’s no public directory to appear in.

Government’s line is that it doesn’t envisage all data being publicly accessible, and that what’s published will be key property data. That’s no guarantee about your home address, but it’s a long way from the settled fact several comments here are treating it as.

Which makes the timing useful rather than hopeless: representations land harder before that instrument is drafted. “My address will be public” is easy to wave away. Your brakes, plus a request that a nominated service address be permitted, isn’t.

One correction while it’s in the air: registering as a landlord is free. The sixty-five pounds a year is per property.

OJ

Please could someone explain To me what the enormous sum of money the government will get EACH year from this database is going to be used for?
Millions of properties = millions and millions of pounds.
I pay Apple less than £12 a year for secure iCloud storage.
How can this much money in fees for maintaining a database be justified?

And as a previous comment said: what actual purpose is this database going to serve?

Like with everything legally binding, until there’s injury, death or criminality that can be evidenced in a pattern forming manner, everything is just fine as far as the government & the authorities are concerned.

Here’s the mad thing. I have to get permission to pass my tenants contact details to a new contractor, under the rules of GDPR. However, my own data isn’t just unprotected, it’s actually likely to be published.

Madness

Reply to the comment left by Gently distressed at 02/10/2026 – 16:26
“And as a previous comment said: what actual purpose is this database going to serve?”
Making it very easy for local LA’s to fine private LL, making 7k per miss / mistake, finding any little cash in error, as all the fines go to the LA, they have a very real reason to chase low hanging fruit (cash)