In this blog:
- When do landlords in Leeds have to register on the new database?
- What is the Register your rental property service?
- What information do I need to register my rental property?
- How much does landlord registration cost?
- Can my letting agent register my property for me?
- Can I advertise a rental property without a registration number?
- What happens if I do not register as a landlord?
On 9 September the government confirmed the dates, the fee and the detail for England’s new landlord register. If you let a property anywhere in Leeds, you will need to be on it by 14 July 2027. This blog sets out what the register is, what it will ask of you, what it costs, what changes for advertising and what to do between now and the spring.
What the register is
Officially it is the Private Rented Sector Database. The service you will use is called Register your rental property. It is a national record of every landlord and every rented home in England, created by the Renters’ Rights Act, and it is designed to give councils a single place to see who is letting what and whether the basics are in order. Tenants will eventually be able to check whether a landlord is registered before they sign.
It is not optional and it is not a one-off. You register yourself, you register each property, and you keep the entries current for as long as you let.
When it applies to Leeds
The service launches on 15 December 2026 in the West Midlands and then opens one region a month. Yorkshire and the Humber goes live on 15 April 2027. From that date, landlords with property in Leeds have three months to register, so the deadline is 14 July 2027.
Two things are worth knowing about the timing. The deadline follows the property, not the landlord. If you live in London and let a flat in Headingley, you work to the Yorkshire date, not London’s. If you live in Leeds and let a house in Manchester, you work to the North West date, which is a month later. And you do not have to wait for April. Once the service is live in December, landlords in any region can register ahead of their own deadline. For anyone who prefers to get it done, that is an option.
What you will need to register
There are two registrations. The first is you. Name, date of birth, correspondence address and contact details, or the company name, Companies House number and director details if you let through a limited company.
The second is each property. Address. Whether you own it freehold or leasehold. Property type and number of bedrooms. How many people and how many households live there. The rent and how often it is paid. Whether bills are included. Whether the property is licensed. And your safety information, which means the current gas safety record, the electrical installation condition report and the energy performance certificate.
Once registered you receive a landlord registration number and a property registration number for each home you let. Those numbers are what you will need for advertising, and they are what councils and, in time, tenants will check.
What it costs
£65 per property, renewed every year. For a landlord with one property that is a small line in the accounts. For a landlord with six it is £390 a year, every year, plus the time to keep six entries current.
What changes for advertising
This is the part most landlords have not thought through. Once Yorkshire is live, no property in Leeds can be marketed without a valid registration number on the listing. That applies to landlords advertising themselves and to letting agents advertising on their behalf. An agent cannot put a property on Rightmove, in the window or in a brochure until the landlord has registered it.
For now the register covers properties that are already let or become occupied during the rollout. The government has said further legislation will extend it to empty properties, which will need registering before they can be advertised at all. So the sequence is going to become register first, then market. Not the other way around.
What happens if you do not register
Councils get access to the data and a legal duty to enforce. Penalties for failing to register start at £7,000 and can reach £40,000 for repeat or deliberate breaches. Separately, under the wider Act, a landlord who is not registered will not be able to seek possession of their own property through the courts. If you ever need the property back, being off the register closes that door.
Only you can register. Your agent cannot do it for you.
This is the part that catches landlords with agents off guard. As the rules currently stand, the registration itself has to be completed by the landlord. Your letting agent cannot set up your account, cannot register your properties on your behalf and cannot hold the registration numbers for you.
What an agent can do is make sure you are never scrambling. The certificates to hand. The dates checked. The tenancy details confirmed. And a prompt when something changes and the entry needs updating. That is the difference between registering in twenty minutes and spending an evening hunting for a gas safety record from 2025.
What to do between now and April
Find your certificates and check the dates. The gas safety record is annual. The electrical report lasts five years. The EPC lasts ten. If any of them expire before July 2027, book the renewal now rather than discovering the gap when you are trying to register.
Check whether your property needs a licence. Parts of Leeds are covered by selective licensing and the register will ask.
Make sure the tenancy details are right. Who lives there, how many households, what the rent is and how often it is paid. If the agreement says one thing and the arrangement is another, sort it before it goes on a government record.
Where Adair Paxton fits
For landlords on a fully managed agreement with us, the preparation is already done. We hold the gas, electrical and energy certificates. We track the renewal dates. We know the tenancy details because we manage the tenancy. When April arrives, registering will be a matter of entering information we have already put in front of you, and when something changes afterwards we will tell you what needs updating and when.
For landlords who self-manage or who are with us on rent collection only, the register adds one more standing obligation to a list that has grown considerably since May. If you would like a straight view of where your property stands, what will need renewing before July and whether your current arrangement gives you the coverage you need, a rental review is the place to start.
And if the register is the point at which letting one of your properties stops making sense, we can help with that too. Our sales team will give you an honest view of what it would achieve, and whether holding or selling is the better decision for you.