The West Midlands is first, and most landlords don’t know yet
The Government’s new Register your rental property service goes live on the 15th of December 2026. Every landlord in England with an assured or regulated tenancy will have to register themselves and each occupied property they let.
The rollout is regional, and the West Midlands is first. If your property is in Coventry, Nuneaton, Bedworth or anywhere else in the region, your deadline to register is 14 March 2027.
That matters more than it sounds. Landlords elsewhere in England have until as late as November 2027, but the deadline follows the property, not the landlord. If you live in London and own a house in Coventry, you’re on the West Midlands timetable, not London’s.
What it costs
£65 per property, every year. A landlord with three properties in the region is looking at £195 annually, indefinitely.
What you’ll need to provide
For yourself: name, home address and contact details.
For each property: the address, number of bedrooms, number of residents, and the rent actually being achieved.
And to demonstrate the property meets health and safety standards, you’ll need to upload:
- A current gas safety record
- A valid Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR)
- A current Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)
This is the part worth acting on early. If any of those has expired, or you can’t lay hands on the paperwork, sorting it in February alongside everyone else in the region will be considerably harder than sorting it now.
Who is responsible
The landlord. Not the agent.
Agents can upload documents on a landlord’s behalf where that’s been agreed, and further guidance on exactly what agents can and can’t do is expected shortly. But the legal responsibility to register, and to keep the information correct, sits with the landlord.
What happens if you miss it
Once your regional deadline passes, local councils can begin enforcement, and landlords who haven’t registered may be fined.
The regional timetable
Deadlines run in this order, based on where the property is:
- West Midlands — 14 March 2027
- East of England — 14 April 2027
- East Midlands — 14 May 2027
- South East — 14 June 2027
- Yorkshire and the Humber — 14 July 2027
- North West — 14 August 2027
- North East — 14 September 2027
- London — 14 October 2027
- South West — 14 November 2027
You can register from the 15th of December 2026 onwards, so there’s no need to wait for your regional date.
Two things still to come
Property listings. Once registered, each property gets a unique reference number, and that number is expected to become a requirement on rental listings from late 2027.
Tenant access. A second phase, expected in 2028, will let tenants check whether a landlord is meeting key legal requirements. Which information becomes public hasn’t been confirmed.
What to do now
Three things, none of them urgent yet, all of them easier in September than in February:
- Check your certificates. Gas safety renews annually, EICRs every five years. Find out now whether any expire before March.
- Find the paperwork. You’ll need to upload the actual documents, not just confirm they exist.
- Note the date. 14 March 2027, and £65 per property per year from then on.
Empty properties don’t need registering at this stage, though guidance is expected on registering before marketing a property to let.
If you’d like a hand working out which of your certificates need renewing before the deadline, or you’d rather we handled the document side once the agent guidance is published, get in touch — we’re Propertymark certified and we run our own gas and electrical team, so certificates and compliance are handled in-house.
Guidance last checked on 09/09/2026
Got a question about any of this? Email us at contact@lovagroup.co.uk and we’ll answer it properly. If it’s a question other landlords are likely to have, we’ll write it up as a guide.
