Rogue landlord database: 51 entries, and what replaces it

The database of rogue landlords and property agents was introduced in April 2018 to let councils see who had been convicted of housing offences. Eight years on it holds 51 active entries, against a government estimate of roughly 10,500 rogue landlords operating in England.

That gap is the story. It is not evidence that councils failed — it is evidence that the mechanism was built in a way that made entries rare, and it explains why the Renters' Rights Act is replacing it with something structurally different.

Banning orders, which come first

Nearly everything about the database runs through banning orders, so they are the place to start. They sit in Part 2, Chapter 2 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016.

How one is made

1. The landlord is convicted of a banning order offence. Which offences qualify is set by regulations — SI 2018/216 — and the list runs from housing offences through violence, fraud and drugs.
2. The council serves a notice of intended proceedings, giving at least 28 days to make representations. This is a real opportunity and it is routinely wasted.
3. The council applies to the First-tier Tribunal. A council cannot make a banning order itself — only the tribunal can.
4. The tribunal decides. Minimum twelve months, and there is no upper limit.

What it actually bans

A banning order prohibits a person from doing any or all of three things in England:

• Letting housing.
• Engaging in letting agency work.
• Engaging in property management work.

This is the part landlords underestimate. A fine is a number; a banning order is the removal of the activity itself. You cannot pay it and carry on.

Breaching one

Breach is an offence under section 21 of the 2016 Act — up to 51 weeks' imprisonment, a fine, or both. It is also a continuing offence, capable of being charged for each day the breach persists, which is what stops a single penalty being treated as the price of ignoring the order.

Alternatively the council may impose a civil penalty under section 23, now up to £40,000 — raised from £30,000 on 1 May 2026 by SI 2026/319, with the older ceiling still applying to conduct before that date.

Never both. The council chooses prosecution or a civil penalty for the same conduct, not both.

And a rent repayment order is available against a landlord who breaches a banning order, which is how tenants recover money during a ban.

The database itself

Sections 28 to 38 of the 2016 Act. Two things about it surprise people.

It is not public, and never has been

The database is visible to local housing authorities only. Not to tenants, not to letting agents, not to journalists, not to you. A tenant cannot look up a prospective landlord on it, and no amount of searching will find a public version, because there isn't one.

This is the single most common misunderstanding about it. The database was built as an enforcement tool for councils to share intelligence, not as a consumer-protection register.

Entry is mostly discretionary

• Mandatory where a banning order is made. The council must enter the person.
• Discretionary after a conviction for a banning order offence, or where the landlord has received two or more civil penalties within twelve months.

That structure is most of the explanation for 51. The mandatory route requires a banning order, and banning orders require a conviction plus a tribunal application. The discretionary route requires a council to choose to spend time on an entry that only other councils will ever see. Neither produces volume.

Why the number is 51 and not 10,500

Worth being careful here, because the two figures measure different things. 51 is the count of active entries, given in a ministerial written answer. ~10,500 is a government estimate of rogue landlords operating in England. The first is an administrative output; the second is an estimate of a population.

The gap is structural, not a scandal about lazy councils:

• A conviction has to happen first, and councils increasingly use civil penalties instead — cheaper, faster, and the money stays with the authority.
• A civil penalty is not a conviction, so the ordinary enforcement route does not feed the database at all.
• An entry benefits other councils rather than the one doing the work.

A register nobody outside local government can read, fed by a route most enforcement now bypasses, was always going to be small.

What replaces it

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 creates the PRS Database — "Register Your Rental Property". It is dated but not yet in force: The Private Rented Sector Database Regulations 2026 were made on 9 September 2026, the service opens on 15 December 2026, the West Midlands must register by 14 March 2027, and every in-scope property in England by 14 November 2027, at £65 per property per year. It arrives region by region rather than nationally, and nobody is in breach today.

Three differences matter:

• Everyone is on it. Not just the convicted — every private landlord in England must register themselves and each property. It inverts the model: the current database records the worst, the new one records everyone.
• Registration gates possession. Once live, a landlord in breach of the duty to register cannot obtain a possession order, except on grounds 7A and 14 (tenant anti-social behaviour). That is a consequence with teeth the current database has never had.
• Penalties scale. Letting or advertising an unregistered property carries a civil penalty of up to £7,000. Repeated breach, or a serious offence such as providing fraudulent information, carries up to £40,000 or prosecution.

Rent repayment orders are also extended to breaches of a restriction on letting or marketing, to providing false information to the database, and to continued failure to register after a financial penalty.

The fee is confirmed as mandatory and annual, but the amount is not yet set — government says it will be confirmed closer to launch. Treat any figure you see quoted as speculation.

See the PRS Database: who must register for the detail, and note that the banning order regime does not disappear when the new database arrives — they run alongside each other.

What this means for an ordinary landlord

If you are not facing a conviction, the current database is not your concern and you will never see it. What you should take from this:

1. Two civil penalties in twelve months is a threshold, not just two bills. It opens the discretionary route to a database entry, which follows you between councils.
2. Get ready to register, but do not try to register yet. The obligation is real and coming; the mechanism is not open. Assembling gas certificates, EICRs, EPCs and deposit records now is useful and costs nothing.
3. Watch for the regional rollout in your area. Being unable to register is not a breach. Being able to and not doing so will be.

Information tool, not legal advice.