How Much Will the PRS Landlord Ombudsman Cost Landlords?

What Will the PRS Landlord Ombudsman Cost?

The honest answer is that the exact PRS Landlord Ombudsman cost has not been published yet — but the shape of it is clear. Membership of the new landlord redress scheme will be funded by landlords through what the government's implementation roadmap calls a "fair and proportionate charging model". In practice that means an annual fee per let property, confirmed closer to launch. This guide sets out what we know, what is still provisional, and the other costs that sit alongside the fee.

TL;DR: The PRS Landlord Ombudsman will be funded by an annual, per-property membership fee, but the government has not published the figure — so treat any specific number as provisional. The Guide to the Renters' Rights Act says landlords will "likely be required to pay a small annual fee per PRS property". This fee is on top of the separate PRS Database charge. The bigger costs are the ones from getting it wrong: compensation to a tenant of up to £25,000, or council penalties of £7,000 to £40,000 for failing to join once it is mandatory (expected 2028).

Expected 2028

How Is the Membership Fee Being Set?

The government has committed to a charging model that is "fair and proportionate", which points to three things:

• Per property, not per landlord — the fee scales with the number of tenancies you let, so a single-property landlord pays less than a portfolio landlord.
• Modest in absolute terms — the Guide describes it as "a small annual fee", and the policy intent is that it should not be a barrier to letting.
• Set by regulations, not yet in force — the fee will be confirmed by the scheme administrator and secondary legislation nearer to launch.

The Full Cost Picture

The membership fee is only one line in the budget. It helps to see it next to the other costs the redress scheme creates:

Cost item	What it is	Indicative amount	Status
Ombudsman membership fee	Annual charge to belong to the scheme	A small amount per property	Not yet set
PRS Database fee	Separate annual registration charge	Not yet published	Not yet set
Compensation order	Paid to a tenant if a complaint is upheld	Up to £25,000	Proposed cap
Civil penalty for not joining	Council fine for breaching the duty	£7,000 (initial) to £40,000 (repeated)	In the Act

The government has said it is exploring ways to share data between the Database and the ombudsman to reduce duplicate sign-up effort, which may keep the combined administrative burden down — but the two fees are expected to be separate.

The Real Cost Is Getting It Wrong

For a landlord who runs things well, the annual fee is a rounding error. The costs that actually hurt are downstream:

• A single upheld complaint can carry a compensation order, with a proposed cap of up to £25,000 for serious cases (most awards for everyday service failures are far smaller).
• Failing to join once the scheme is mandatory exposes you to council civil penalties of up to £7,000 for an initial breach and up to £40,000 for continuing or repeated breaches, or criminal prosecution — see our landlord penalties guide.

Set against those figures, the membership fee is cheap insurance. It also compares well to the alternative it replaces: a single county court application costs far more in fees and time than a year of ombudsman membership.

A Worked Example

Take a landlord in Nottingham with three terraced houses. If the ombudsman fee lands at, say, a modest per-property figure, three properties means three times that — an annual cost in the low tens of pounds per property, sitting alongside their landlord insurance and Database registration. Compare that to one avoidable compensation order for a mishandled repair complaint, which could run into hundreds or low thousands of pounds. The maths makes the case for good complaint-handling on its own.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line

The PRS Landlord Ombudsman will cost most landlords a small, predictable annual fee per property — the sort of running cost you already accept for insurance and safety certificates. The unpredictable costs are the compensation orders and penalties that follow poor complaint-handling, and those are entirely within your control.

For the wider picture, read the PRS Landlord Ombudsman pillar guide, the membership requirements, and our Renters' Rights Act compliance checklist.