The Landlord Ombudsman Scheme in 2026: What Landlords Must Do to Prepare

Every private landlord in England will have to join the new PRS Landlord Ombudsman, with mandatory registration expected from 2028. Membership will cost an annual per-property fee, still to be confirmed by government. Tenants — not landlords — can bring complaints, and the Ombudsman can order compensation of up to £25,000 per case, a cap set by regulation 4 of the Private Landlord Redress Schemes (Approval and Designation) Regulations 2026. Landlords who refuse to join once the scheme is live face council civil penalties of up to £7,000 for an initial breach, rising to up to £40,000 or criminal prosecution for continuing breaches. None of this is in force yet, but the Ombudsman will judge how you handled complaints before it ever gets involved, so the time to understand it is now, while there is still room to put your own complaints process in order.

In short: the PRS Landlord Ombudsman is a new statutory complaints scheme for private landlords in England, created by the Renters' Rights Act 2025. Every private landlord — including single-property landlords — will have to join, with mandatory registration expected from 2028, once the PRS Database has rolled out from late 2026. Tenants (not landlords) can bring complaints, and the Ombudsman's decisions are legally binding: it can order an apology, direct a landlord to take or stop an action, require information to be provided, or award tenants compensation of up to £25,000 (the cap set by regulation 4 of the Private Landlord Redress Schemes (Approval and Designation) Regulations 2026, made on 16 September 2026). Membership will cost an annual per-property fee, still to be confirmed by government. Landlords who refuse to join once the scheme is live face council-imposed civil penalties of up to £7,000 for an initial breach, rising to up to £40,000 or criminal prosecution for continuing or repeated breaches. None of this is in force yet — but the Ombudsman will judge how you handled complaints before it ever gets involved, so the practical preparation (a written complaints procedure, a paper trail of every repair request) starts now, not in 2028.

TL;DR

• The PRS Landlord Ombudsman is a new statutory redress scheme created by the Renters' Rights Act 2025 (Royal Assent 27 October 2025).
• Membership will be mandatory for all private landlords in England — including landlords with a single property — and is expected to be enforced from 2028, after the PRS Database rolls out from late 2026.
• Only tenants can bring complaints. The Ombudsman can order a landlord to apologise, take or stop an action, provide information, or pay compensation of up to £25,000, and its decisions will be binding.
• Landlords will pay an annual fee per property, set "closer to launch" by the government. Failing to join once required will trigger local-council enforcement and civil penalties.
• You can prepare now by writing a clear written complaints procedure, logging every tenant communication, and resolving disputes quickly before they escalate.

The Landlord Ombudsman Scheme in 2026: What's Confirmed vs Still Awaited

What Is the PRS Landlord Ombudsman?

The PRS Landlord Ombudsman is a single, government-approved redress scheme for the private rented sector. It does for private landlords what the existing Housing Ombudsman does for social landlords, and what redress schemes like The Property Ombudsman already do for letting agents. According to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government's implementation roadmap, the Ombudsman will "provide a redress service for private rented sector tenants when things go wrong" and will also offer landlords "tools, guidance and training on handling complaints from tenants early."

It is designed to settle disputes about issues like delayed repairs, poor property condition, communication failures and unprofessional behaviour, without either party needing to issue court proceedings. Crucially, it is a tenant-facing service: the government's Guide to the Renters' Rights Act is explicit that "only tenants will be able to seek redress from the service" — its role is to protect the consumer (the renter). The government has said it is separately exploring options for landlord-initiated mediation, to give landlords a route to resolve disputes with their tenants.

When Must I Join and Register?

The Ombudsman will be introduced during Phase 2 of the Renters' Rights Act, which begins in late 2026 with the rollout of the PRS Database. The Ombudsman itself comes after that. According to MHCLG's published milestones, mandatory landlord sign-up is expected in 2028, once the Secretary of State is satisfied the scheme is ready to accept members.

The roadmap sets out a two-stage build:

Timeline at a Glance

Do Private Landlords Have to Join the PRS Ombudsman?

Yes — under the Renters' Rights Act 2025, membership will be mandatory for all private landlords of assured and regulated tenancies in England — there is no exemption for small landlords. If you let out a single buy-to-let through a periodic assured tenancy, you will need to register, regardless of whether you use a letting agent.

The Housing Ombudsman Service has confirmed on its own guidance page that the new scheme "will be mandatory for nearly all private landlords to join" and is expected to go live in 2028. Letting agents are not within the new scheme's remit — they remain in the existing agent redress schemes — but where both a landlord and their agent are at fault, the Act provides for joint investigations across the two regimes.

What Are the Penalties for Not Joining?

If you fail to register once membership is mandatory, your local council can fine you up to £40,000 or refer you for criminal prosecution. Once membership is mandatory, refusing to join is treated as a compliance failure like any other under the Act. Local councils will be able to take enforcement action, and the government's Guide to the Renters' Rights Act sets out civil penalties of up to £7,000 for an initial breach, rising to up to £40,000 or criminal prosecution for continuing or repeated breaches, Because the duty to join only bites once the scheme goes live — expected in 2028 — there is no penalty for not being registered today. But councils will not need to prove a tenant complaint went badly to act; simply failing to register once the deadline passes is itself the breach.

What Can the Ombudsman Order Me to Pay?

The PRS Ombudsman can award tenants compensation of up to £25,000 per complaint — the cap set by regulation 4 of the 2026 approval regulations (SI 2026/1033). The Ombudsman's decisions will be legally binding on landlords. The published Guide to the Renters' Rights Act confirms that, where the Ombudsman finds a landlord has acted unreasonably or unprofessionally in handling a complaint, it can:

• order the landlord to take, or stop taking, a specified action;
• require an apology or explanation;
• direct provision of information; and
• award financial compensation to the tenant, capped at up to £25,000 per case.

The government's Guide to the Renters' Rights Act says councils will be able to act against landlords who fail to join, with "civil penalties of up to £7,000 for initial breaches and up to £40,000 or criminal prosecution for continuing or repeated breaches." Those maxima are written into section 66 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025. The compensation cap of up to £25,000 is set by regulation 4 of SI 2026/1033. The membership duty and these penalties are not yet in force — they arrive with the scheme, expected in 2028. Separately, and already in force, the maximum civil penalty for the most serious housing offences generally (not just redress-scheme breaches) rose from £30,000 to £40,000 on 1 May 2026, per the Renters' Rights Act roadmap — the same ceiling now set for repeated redress-scheme breaches.

The Ombudsman is meant to resolve complaints quickly and fairly, without anyone going to court. That only works if the landlord engaged with the tenant properly in the first place.

How Much Does Membership Cost?

Membership will be funded by landlords through what the government describes as a "fair and proportionate charging model." In practical terms, this means an annual fee per let property, the exact level of which will be confirmed closer to launch. The government's Guide to the Renters' Rights Act says landlords "will likely be required to pay a small annual fee per PRS property", but the figure has not been published. Until it is, treat any number you see quoted as provisional — our guide to how much the PRS Ombudsman will cost sets out the full cost picture.

The fee is in addition to the separate annual fee landlords will pay to be on the PRS Database — £65 per property per year, according to the government's registration guidance. The government has said it is exploring ways to share data between the Database and the Ombudsman to reduce duplicate sign-up effort.

When Does Membership Become Compulsory?

Membership becomes compulsory once the Secretary of State is satisfied the scheme is ready to accept members, which the government's roadmap currently puts at 2028, after the PRS Database has rolled out regionally from late 2026. There is no confirmed statutory commencement date yet — only a working estimate — so check GOV.UK periodically rather than relying on a fixed date.

Do I Need to Join the Scheme If I Only Have One Property?

Yes. There is no small-landlord or single-property exemption in the government's roadmap — the decision to join is not based on your portfolio size, tenancy start date, or income level. The table below sets out how the mandatory membership rule applies in practice.

What Should Landlords Do Now to Prepare?

You do not need to register yet — the scheme administrator has not been appointed at the time of writing. But the Ombudsman will judge you, in part, on how you handled the tenant's complaint before it reached the Ombudsman. So the preparation work is operational, not paperwork.

1. Write a simple complaints procedure. A one-page document setting out how a tenant raises a complaint, who responds, and the timescales you commit to (e.g. acknowledge within 5 working days, full response within 20). Give it to every tenant when they move in — our landlord complaints procedure template gives you a copy-and-adapt starting point. Once the scheme is live, it should also tell tenants how to escalate to the Ombudsman if they are still unhappy. If a letting agent manages the property, agree in writing who responds to complaints — the membership duty sits with you, not the agent.
2. Keep everything in writing. Move tenant communication onto email or a property-management app. Verbal agreements about repairs or rent are exactly what go wrong in front of an Ombudsman.
3. Log repair requests with dates. When a tenant reports a problem, record the date received, the action taken, contractor used and date completed, and keep inspection reports and dated photographs of the property's condition alongside it. This audit trail is your single most important defence.
4. Respond to complaints early and properly. At the long-running Housing Ombudsman for social housing, complaint handling itself — slow responses, defensive replies — is a recurring reason cases go against landlords, as much as the underlying issue. A prompt, polite, written response usually closes the matter.
5. Get your safety compliance straight. Many tenant complaints turn on gas, electrical and damp issues. Use our landlord safety compliance checklist to confirm certificates are current and on file.
6. Clear any backlog before the scheme goes live. Outstanding repairs and unanswered tenant queries are exactly what turn into complaints once tenants have a free route to an independent body. Resolve them now, while the only audience is your tenant.
7. Check your insurance. Ask your landlord insurance provider whether any legal expenses cover extends to responding to an Ombudsman complaint. Policies differ, so check the wording rather than assuming.

How Does the Ombudsman Fit With the Wider Renters' Rights Act?

The Ombudsman is one of three big Phase 2 / Phase 3 structural changes that change a landlord's compliance landscape:

The two Phase 3 reforms each have a dedicated guide — Awaab's Law for private landlords and the Decent Homes Standard. For the full sequencing, see our Renters' Rights Act timeline of key dates; for the broader Phase 1 changes already in force from 1 May 2026, our Renters' Rights Act overview is the right starting point. If you would rather work from a single to-do list, our Renters' Rights Act compliance checklist pulls every obligation together.

Staying on top of registration deadlines, certificates and complaint logs across multiple obligations is exactly what LandlordReady's compliance tracker is built for — it flags the PRS Database and Ombudsman deadlines alongside your gas, electrical and EPC renewals so nothing slips through. For how the Ombudsman fits alongside the other redress routes open to tenants, see our landlord redress scheme explainer.

Frequently Asked Questions

The bottom line

The PRS Landlord Ombudsman is not a near-term emergency, but it is a near-term planning item. The deadline of 2028 sounds distant, yet the Ombudsman will be judging landlord behaviour from the day membership goes live — including how you respond to the tenant who emailed about a leaky boiler three months earlier. The landlords who will sail through it are the ones who, starting now, write things down, respond promptly and treat complaints as something to fix rather than something to fight. That is the work of the next 18 months, not 2028.