Letting Agent Licensing in England: What Has Been Confirmed and What Has Not

Letting Agent Licensing in England: What Has Been Confirmed and What Has Not

On 29 September 2026 the government announced that it intends to require property agents in England to hold a licence and appropriate qualifications, overseen by an independent regulator with power to revoke licences. No legislation has been published. The regulator, qualification levels, licence fees and start date are not yet known, so there is currently no licence to apply for.

This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Agents and landlords should seek independent legal advice for their specific circumstances. It describes the position in England as at 5 October 2026.

What did the government actually announce?

The government committed to introducing independent regulation of property agents for the first time. The commitment was made by the Housing Secretary at the Labour Party conference on 29 September 2026 and set out in a Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government press release dated 30 September 2026.

The press release makes four points about agents:

• property agents will be required to obtain a licence to do the job;
• they will also need appropriate qualifications to operate;
• a regulator will be able to set codes of practice, including standards of conduct and complaint handling; and
• the regulator will have power to remove licences from agents who fall below the required standards.

The announcement formed part of a wider leasehold package, which also includes powers to cap permission and administration fees charged to leaseholders. The government said it would bring the changes forward "as soon as possible" and set out more information in due course.

Is letting agent licensing law yet?

No. The announcement is a statement of policy intention. Licensing of this kind would require legislation, and at the time of writing no bill, draft regulations or consultation document on agent licensing has been published.

This matters for anything an agency says publicly. An agency cannot currently be "licensed" under this scheme, and marketing that implies otherwise risks being misleading under consumer protection law. Agents with existing professional body membership or regulated qualifications can describe those accurately, but should not present them as satisfying a licensing regime whose requirements have not been set.

Who is expected to be covered?

The press release refers only to "property agents" and does not define the term. Industry and press reporting of the conference announcement has described the regime as covering estate agents, letting agents and managing agents, with some reports also referring to estate managers on freehold estates.

Which activities and which individuals will need a licence is not yet confirmed. That question is likely to be one of the most consequential. It will determine, for example, whether every member of staff needs a qualification or only those carrying out defined activities, and how businesses that provide only part of the letting or management process are treated.

Property agent, meaning in this announcement a business or individual acting for others in selling, letting or managing residential property, is a policy term at this stage, not a defined statutory term.

What is still unknown?

Almost every operational detail remains open. The table below summarises the position as at 5 October 2026.

Until these points are confirmed, any figure or deadline attributed to the new regime should be treated with caution.

How might the detail be shaped?

The most developed template is the 2019 report of the Regulation of Property Agents (RoPA) working group, chaired by Lord Best and published by the then Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on 18 July 2019. The government has not said it will adopt these recommendations, but the September 2026 announcement follows the same broad structure.

Two later developments point the same way. In July 2025 the government consulted on proposals that included mandatory qualifications for leasehold managing agents, with Level 4 put forward as the minimum for most. A government answer to a parliamentary question in April 2026 also referred to a home buying and selling consultation that sought views on a code of practice setting minimum standards for letting, estate and managing agents.

None of this fixes what the final scheme will require. It does indicate that qualifications, a code of practice and CPD are the likely building blocks.

How does this differ from the rules agents already follow?

Licensing would add an entry requirement on top of existing duties; it would not replace them. Letting agents in England are already subject to several specific statutory obligations, each enforced by local authorities.

Agents also carry duties on behalf of landlord clients. Under the Right to Rent code of practice in force from 1 October 2026, for example, where an agent has accepted responsibility for checks in writing, liability for any civil penalty rests with the agent rather than the landlord. Our current compliance checklist for letting agents sets out these duties in full, and our Right to Rent guide covers the agent responsibility point in more detail.

The practical difference is this. The current rules mostly penalise specific failures after the event. A licensing regime would, if introduced as described, control who may operate in the first place and allow a regulator to remove that permission.

When is licensing likely to apply?

No date has been given, and none should be assumed. Before any licence is required, Parliament would need to pass legislation, a regulator would need to be established and funded, a qualification framework would need to be agreed, and a transition period for existing agents would need to be set.

It is worth remembering that the government first committed to regulating property agents in 2018. The RoPA report followed in 2019, but its recommendations were not legislated for. The September 2026 announcement is a firmer commitment than anything since, but a multi-year lead time is a reasonable working assumption until a timetable is published.

What can agents sensibly do now?

There is no legal requirement to act on the announcement yet. Best practice suggests, however, that agencies use the lead time to put in order the things any regulator is likely to examine. These steps are practical recommendations, not legal obligations.

1. Map staff competence. Record who holds which qualifications, when they were obtained, and what training each person has completed. This is useful whatever level is eventually set.
2. Version your procedures. Write down how the agency handles key processes such as Right to Rent checks, certificate renewals, deposit protection and repairs, and record when each procedure changed.
3. Evidence your complaints handling. Redress schemes already expect an in-house complaints procedure. Records of how complaints were received, handled and resolved are likely to matter more under a regulator with power over licences. Our article on the evidence redress schemes expect from letting agents covers this.
4. Keep client money records tidy. CMP membership and segregated accounts are already compulsory where client money is held. Our guide to client money protection and compliance records explains what to retain.
5. Check your insurance position. Professional indemnity cover is already effectively required for CMP scheme membership. See PI insurance and compliance workflows for letting agents.
6. Be careful with qualification marketing. Until a regulator sets a syllabus, no qualification can be confirmed as meeting the licensing standard. Regulated Level 3 and Level 4 property qualifications already exist and may well be recognised, but that has not been confirmed.

What does this mean for landlords who use agents?

Nothing changes for landlords today. A landlord using an agent should continue to check that the agent belongs to a redress scheme and, where it holds client money, a client money protection scheme. It remains sensible to agree in writing who is responsible for each compliance task, because responsibility for a lapsed certificate can fall on either party depending on the arrangement. Our article on who is liable when a certificate lapses explains how that allocation works.

In time, a licensing regime may give landlords a simple way to confirm that an agent is authorised to operate. Until the register, regulator and standards exist, landlords should rely on the checks available now.

Agencies preparing for regulation need to show that the same procedure was followed on every property, by whom, and when. LLCR's Agency plan provides role-based permissions and a dated record of compliance actions across a portfolio, which may help an agency evidence consistent procedures to clients and, in future, to a regulator. See how LLCR works for letting agents.