Agents can file it, landlords still own it: the PRS Database duty split

Every managed landlord is about to assume their agent is handling registration. Most agents will be. The problem is the small number who assume the landlord is doing it, and the fact that when that gap appears, the law does not split the consequence between them.

The duty belongs to the owner. The work will mostly be done by the agent. That mismatch is the single most predictable source of trouble in the PRS Database rollout, and it is entirely avoidable with one email per property.

Here is how the duty actually sits, what it means for an agency running a few hundred managed properties, and the short paragraph worth adding to your terms of business.

Where the duty sits

Agents can act on the landlord’s behalf for the administration of registration. The obligation to be registered belongs to the person who owns the property.

In practice that means a local authority pursuing non-registration pursues the landlord. The agent’s failure to file is a matter between agent and client, resolved commercially or in contract, not something that moves the statutory penalty.

For landlords that is uncomfortable, because the work sits with someone else and the liability does not. For agents it is a professional risk, because a client who receives a penalty for something they paid you to handle is a client you are about to lose, and possibly a claim.

What a landlord should ask for

One thing: written confirmation that registration is complete, with the date, per property.

Not a reassurance in a phone call. Not a line in a monthly statement saying compliance is up to date. A dated confirmation you can produce if a council asks, filed with the tenancy documents.

If your agent cannot produce that per property, you do not know whether you are registered, and given that non-registration blocks Section 8 possession, portal advertising and HMO renewal, not knowing is an expensive position.

What this looks like across a managed book

For a single property this is trivial. For an agency with 300 managed units across several regions it is a project with a moving deadline, because the rollout is regional and your book probably is not confined to one region.

The sequence that works is to segment the book by region first, so you know the order you will be working in, then audit certificate currency across the whole book rather than property by property. Gas safety runs on 12 months and EICR on 5 years, and in a book of any size there will be a tail of expired and nearly expired certificates you did not know about until you looked.

That tail is the real timeline. Registration takes minutes per property. Getting an engineer to 40 properties does not.

The terms of business paragraph

Worth adding, in plain terms: state whether you register on the landlord’s behalf, state that the statutory duty remains with the landlord, and state how confirmation is provided.

Three sentences remove almost all of the ambiguity that would otherwise surface as a dispute. They also protect the agent, because the most common version of this argument is a landlord asserting they believed it was included in the management fee.

Where you do not register on the client’s behalf, say so explicitly. Silence will be read as inclusion.

The evidence problem agents actually have

The awkward part for agents is that registration asks for evidence the agent may not hold. A landlord who managed the property themselves for years before handing it over may have the original gas certificates, the EPC and the deposit protection paperwork in a drawer, not in your system.

Chasing that historic documentation is slow, and it is worth starting before the region opens rather than at the point of filing. It also tends to surface genuine gaps, properties where the EICR was never done, or the deposit was protected late, and those are better discovered by you than by a council.

Our letting agent software page covers how the evidence is kept against the tenancy so it does not live in a drawer.

How Rentalize handles this

Rentalize records who filed the registration and when, alongside the certificate expiry dates that back it, against each tenancy. For an agency that means the confirmation a client asks for is a report rather than an archaeology project.

It is used by property management companies and letting agents managing across many owners, with the compliance layer described on the Renters’ Rights Act compliance page.

If you would like to see how registration status is reported per client, you can book a 20 minute walkthrough.

Frequently asked questions

Can a letting agent register a property on the PRS Database?

Yes. Agents can carry out the administration of registration on the landlord’s behalf. The statutory duty to be registered remains with the property owner.

Who receives the penalty if registration is missed?

The landlord. The local authority pursues the owner, and any failure by the agent is a matter between agent and client rather than something that shifts the statutory liability.

What confirmation should a landlord ask for?

Written confirmation that registration is complete, with the date, for each property, filed with the tenancy documents. A verbal assurance or a general compliance statement is not sufficient evidence.

How should an agency prepare a managed book?

Segment the book by region to establish the working order, then audit gas safety and EICR currency across the whole book. The certificate tail, not the registration itself, sets the timeline.

What if the landlord holds the compliance documents?

Start collecting them before the region opens. Historic certificates held by owners are slow to retrieve and the process usually surfaces genuine gaps that are better found internally than by a council.