Pressure grows for landlord database to 'go much further'

An influential lobbying group has called for the looming Private Rented Sector Database to be used as a key tool to clamp down on bad landlords and help fund better enforcement via a £46 per property, per year basis.

The New Economics Foundation, which as a leading left-of-centre thinktank has the ears of the Government, also says the database should require landlords to upload all their safety certificates including for gas, electrics and EPC, and be used by tenants to tell the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ landlords.

This would include mandating that landlords who use letting agents reveal their identity, and allowing both regulators and lenders to have access to the database.

New Economics Foundation also says that the new database should not replace but ‘complement’ existing selective and HMO schemes.

Its report says: “The Renters’ Rights Bill represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to tackle England’s long-standing crisis in the private rented sector.

“Among its most consequential components is the introduction of a national database. If ambitiously implemented, this new system could transform the enforcement landscape by driving up transparency, enabling accountability and giving local authorities the tools and funding they need to uphold standards.”

The comments by the New Economics Forum follow months of silence from Ministers on the details of how it might work, other than general pronouncements that it will “be created to help landlords understand their obligations for compliance and provide tenants the information they need to make informed choices for new tenancies.

“It will also enable councils to focus enforcement where it is needed most.”

But the Government has to date said while it agrees that the database should ‘do more’ as the New Economics Forum would, during the Bill’s progress through the Lords, housing minister Baroness Scott said: “During Committee, we had a thoughtful and wide-ranging discussion about the purpose, function and future potential of this database, and many noble Lords suggested that it could, and perhaps should, do more.

“I agree: in time, that may well be prudent. But, from my experience as a Minister, I have learned the value of taking one step at a time. Let us focus first on getting this system up and running and getting it right.”