Labour Laughs at Landlords
Tuesday 15th September 2026
And it’s not funny for the tenants.
Lions led by Donkeys comes to mind.
The Donkeys in the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) currently led by Stamp Duty ‘Avoider in Chief’ ‘Ungela’ Raynor is riven with ill-conceived ideas.
As part of the Renters ‘Wrongs’ Act, they have launched their new Landlord Property Database.
Hapless private landlords across the nation will have to give their inside leg measurements, to be kept on the database for use by local authorities and central government, in the first instance.
At some point in 2028 the database will be opened up for tenants and the general public to see.
In theory, Government is bound by the General Data Protection Regulation’s data minimisation rules i.e. only that which is essential for the public can be divulged.
However, the Governments’ own website says rather ambiguously, ‘We’ll publish a list of information that the public will be able to access at a later stage.’
Why not be clear now?
This is the information a private landlord will have to supply by law:
- Name
- Date of birth
- Residential address
- Telephone number
- Email address
I would suggest that any one of the above 5 points could lead to landlords being targeted and persecuted by radical anti-landlord groups.
Possibly worse, landlords may find their phones ringing and emails zinging with agents and others offering their services!
And to make things even worse, landlords have to register this data themselves.
Agents have been precluded from this process, breaking the usual agent/client service norms. Even solicitors cannot register for landlords.
This is civil servants wilfully creating difficulties for landlords and their agents. And for what reason?
The rogue agents and landlords will simply not comply whilst proper people will be bogged down in ever-increasing admin with fines for mistakes.
The net effect of this Landlord Database is that even more private landlords will leave the market, reducing supply and increasing rents.
Generation Rent, Shelter, the Green Party et al are donkeys too.
The National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) and the agents’ body Propertymark, need to step up.
Rather than licking their lips at all the training modules they can sell and toadying up to civil servants and ministers, they should lift their lobbying games. Propertymark and NRLA actually need to fight these extremely damaging bureaucratic impositions.
Not for landlords, not just for agents, but for the benefit of those lions, the tenants.
Until next time…
PB
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