The PRS Database: what letting agents need to do before it goes live

The Private Rented Sector (PRS) Database is a national register of landlords and their rental properties, created by the Renters' Rights Act 2025. Under the government's published implementation roadmap it is due to arrive in the second phase of the Act's rollout, from late 2026, alongside the new PRS Landlord Ombudsman. Landlords will be required to register themselves and every property they let — and in practice, for managed portfolios, it will be letting agents who make sure that happens. If you manage property for landlords, the preparation window is now.

What is the PRS Database?

The database is a central government register for the private rented sector in England. Landlords will need to create an entry for themselves and for each rental property, so that tenants, local authorities and the courts can see who is behind a tenancy and whether the basics are in order. It is designed to work hand in hand with the rest of the Renters' Rights Act: registration is intended to become part of the routine of letting a property lawfully, in the same way a gas certificate or a deposit registration is today.

For agents, the significant shift is visibility. Compliance that used to live in your filing system becomes something a local authority — or a tenant — can check against a public record.

When does the PRS Database launch?

The government's implementation roadmap for the Renters' Rights Act, published in November 2025, set out three phases:

• Phase 1 — 1 May 2026 (already in force): the core tenancy reforms. Assured shorthold tenancies converted to open-ended periodic tenancies, Section 21 was abolished, and the reformed possession grounds took effect.
• Phase 2 — from late 2026: the PRS Database and the new Landlord Ombudsman are due to come into operation, with registration opening ahead of enforcement.
• Phase 3 — later: further standards for the sector, including the application of the Decent Homes Standard to private rentals, are slated to follow.

Exact commencement dates and the detailed registration process will be confirmed in secondary legislation and government guidance, so treat "late 2026" as the planning horizon rather than a fixed date — and expect the usual pattern of a lead-in period before enforcement begins.

Who has to register — landlords or letting agents?

The legal duty to register sits with the landlord, not the agent. But that distinction will matter very little in practice. Landlords who pay for management expect their agent to keep them lawful, and an unregistered landlord is an unlettable instruction: the Act restricts marketing, advertising and gaining possession where registration requirements are not met. Government guidance on how agents can assist with or administer registrations is still to come.

The realistic operating assumption for an agency: you will be checking, chasing and evidencing registration for every managed landlord, exactly as you do today for gas safety, EICRs, EPCs and deposit protection. That is one more recurring obligation in the lettings compliance calendar — with the difference that this one is visible to tenants and local authorities from day one.

What happens if a landlord is not registered?

Based on the Act itself, non-compliance carries real teeth: restrictions on advertising and letting the property, obstacles to recovering possession, and civil penalties from the local authority — with substantially higher penalties for continued or repeat breaches. The reputational risk lands on the agency as much as the landlord: a portfolio with registration gaps will be a portfolio that struggles to serve valid possession notices when it matters.

None of this is designed to catch out the well-run agency. It is designed to make the poorly-run corner of the market visible. For agents whose records are already clean, the database is close to an administrative formality — the work is in proving the records are clean, at portfolio scale, before registration opens.

How should letting agents prepare now?

The preparation is a data exercise, and it can start today:

1. Audit landlord records. For every managed landlord: full legal name, correspondence address, contact details, and confirmation of who actually owns each property (individual, joint owners, company). Registration will be done against the legal owner — mismatches between your CRM and the title are the thing to find now, not at the deadline.
2. Audit property records. One accurate, current record per property: address, ownership, and the compliance documents that evidence its condition — gas safety, EICR, EPC. Our gas, EICR and EPC deadlines guide covers the renewal cycles.
3. Decide your registration service. Will you register on landlords' behalf where permitted, or instruct and chase? Either way, define it, price it if appropriate, and put it in your terms of business before the rush.
4. Tell your landlords early. A short, plain-English note now — what is coming, what you will handle, what you need from them — positions the agency as ahead of the change. Agents who communicated Phase 1 well in spring 2026 won instructions from those who did not.
5. Watch for the guidance. Registration mechanics, fees and agent-access arrangements will be set out in secondary legislation. Build the checklist now; fill in the specifics when the guidance lands.

How does this fit into the wider Renters' Rights Act?

The database is one strand of the same reform that abolished Section 21 and converted tenancies to periodic — our guide to the Renters' Rights Act for letting agents covers the tenancy-reform side that is already in force. The common thread across every phase is the same: the Act rewards agencies whose back office is organised, evidenced and current, and punishes the ones running on spreadsheets and memory.

That is the real preparation. An agency whose certificates, ownership records and landlord details are already tracked in one system will register a whole portfolio without drama. If your compliance records are not yet in that state, that is the gap to close before late 2026 — it is exactly the work Solace's managed compliance service runs under your brand: every certificate tracked and renewed, every record filed and evidenced, ready for whatever the guidance specifies. To see it against your own portfolio, book a demo.