Private Rented Sector (PRS) Ombudsman
The Private Rented Sector (PRS) Ombudsman is the new, mandatory redress body created by the Renters’ Rights Act for all private landlords in England, including those who use letting agents. If you let out assured or regulated tenancies, you will have to join the scheme and stay registered, alongside registering on the national Private Rented Sector Database.
From a landlord’s perspective, the Ombudsman is the main route for tenants to pursue complaints about your conduct or management, after they have used your internal complaints process. Typical issues are likely to include slow or poor repairs, communication failures, mishandling of pets requests, standards concerns, and other breaches of your obligations. The Ombudsman will investigate, make an impartial, binding decision, and can require you to apologise, put things right and/or pay compensation.
Membership will be funded by landlord fees, expected to be per-property. Failure to join or to co-operate can lead to civil penalties with higher fines for repeat breaches, potential criminal prosecution, rent repayment orders, and restrictions on using certain possession grounds if you are not properly registered on the private rented sector database and Ombudsman.
For professional landlords, the Ombudsman makes robust complaints handling, record keeping and early resolution non-negotiable parts of running a compliant rental business.
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