Landlords face £65 annual PRS Database fee as HMRC takes on rent increase disputes
1 week ago | 92 comments
Tenants: Government rules meant to protect you just gave you a rent increase
by Mick Roberts
8:58 AM, 15th September 2026, 3 days ago
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Dear tenants,
The government has just brought in yet another charge, a £65-a-year fee for each property to be registered on the PRS Database. That means you’ll need a rent increase of around £6 per month just to cover it.
All the information needed for the property database, the council already has for selective licensing. The council already charges around £1,000 every five years for this, which works out at £200 per year, or another £20 per month in rent.
Previously, we could just agree between ourselves that if the rent was £1,000 and you were paying £750, for example, we could agree verbally to increase it to £775 or £800.
Well, the government has now put a stop to that, costing you again. The government has said all rent increases must now be done by Section 13. Letting agents charge around £75 to do this, which is another £6–£7 per month.
Before we even get to a small rent increase to cover all the inflationary increases in our costs, you’ve already got around £33 per month going straight to the government and council charges.
This is without the extra administration these changes create. We are now having to deal with all of this from 4am office starts through to 9pm finishes.
Unfortunately, no longer small rent increases, I’m afraid. We are looking at a minimum of around £83 per month before we even start to cover the increasing costs of running and maintaining the properties.
I could go on and on, if some media outlet would finally tell the truth and put it all out there.
The tenants who have had no problems, the 80% who have had good landlords and no issues, are the ones who are really being hit hard by all these government and council changes.
Article by Mick Roberts, one of Nottingham’s largest landlords to house benefit tenants.
14 comments on this article
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Member Since May 2018 - Comments: 2524
4:08 PM, 16th September 2026, About 1 day ago
Reply to the comment left by Chris @ Possession Friend at 16/09/2026 – 15:17
There was a case either this week or last week on TV of a (female) landlord who took I think nearly two years to get her property back from a tenant: Are there instances where the landlord can speed things up because of ‘exceptional hardship’?
Member Since May 2018 - Comments: 2524
6:21 PM, 16th September 2026, About 1 day ago
Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 16/09/2026 – 16:08
I’m not sure where I heard it now and I’m fairly sure I heard two years but there’s a bit of detail here from the BBC on what looks like the same report:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czezy8nel86o
The lady who owned the property said the tenant didn’t look after the property, she gave the tenant more than a year’s notice, she didn’t get any rent for 10 months and she had to live in a campervan. Wherever I heard her talking about her case she said something like the process seemed to be very one-sided, i.e. biased in favour of the tenant.
Does anybody know whether the courts can speed things up for the property owner’s family because of ‘exceptional hardship’, e..g where the property owner is having to live in a campervan with her children whilst the tenant trashes the property?
Member Since April 2017 - Comments: 170 - Articles: 1
6:42 PM, 17th September 2026, About 5 hours ago
So every Property in the country is having another say £1.25 per week cost. I wonder if ever tenant would be happy to pay that so that it can be registered?
Member Since June 2013 - Comments: 3322 - Articles: 82
6:54 PM, 17th September 2026, About 5 hours ago
One of our colleagues wrote most of this earlier, it’s quite grim the admin we’ve got coming up.
The regulatory and administrative burden has changed hugely over the years.
When I first started renting properties back in 1989, things were incredibly straightforward. You could go into WH Smith, buy a standard tenancy agreement, photocopy it and get on with letting the property. Today, the paperwork and compliance surrounding a single tenancy can run into hundreds of pages once you include tenancy documentation, deposit protection, EPCs, gas safety, electrical inspections, smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, right to rent checks, prescribed information, licensing requirements, certificates, notices and all the other documentation and administration that has accumulated over the years.
And it is not just the paperwork. There are now countless additional costs, licences, inspections, certificates, software requirements, professional fees, compliance costs, council charges and taxation changes that simply did not exist when many of us started out.
Making Tax Digital is another example. Landlords who fall within the current threshold now have to maintain digital records and use compatible software, with quarterly reporting requirements to HMRC. HMRC itself confirms that landlords may face additional software, accountancy, training and administration costs as a result.
The electrical safety regulations alone now require inspections at least every five years, with reports having to be provided to tenants and councils when requested. Gas safety checks are annual, EPC requirements have been introduced, smoke and carbon monoxide alarm requirements have expanded, and licensing and other local authority requirements can add substantial further costs.
So Mick’s £83 figure is really only scratching the surface. There is a much bigger story here about the cumulative cost of regulation, taxation, compliance and administration, and ultimately a significant proportion of those costs inevitably find their way into the cost of renting.
I honestly think someone needs to sit down and produce a proper historical comparison of what it actually cost to let a property in 1989 compared with what it costs today. I suspect the difference would be quite staggering.