The Rented Sector Ombudsman: what every Huntingdonshire landlord must do now.

What is the Rented Sector Ombudsman?

The Rented Sector Ombudsman (RSO) is an independent, government-approved dispute resolution service created by the Renters' Rights Act 2025, which came into force on 1 May 2026. Every private landlord in England must belong to it. Where a tenant has a complaint about their landlord and cannot resolve it directly, they can take the matter to the Ombudsman at no cost to themselves. The Ombudsman investigates, makes findings, and where a complaint is upheld can issue binding decisions requiring the landlord to pay compensation or remedy the problem.

Before the Act, private tenants in a dispute with a landlord faced a difficult choice: absorb the problem, pursue informal negotiation, or go to court. The Ombudsman creates a faster, lower-cost middle route. For landlords, membership is not optional; it is a legal requirement sitting alongside registration on the Private Rented Sector database.

Who must join the Rented Sector Ombudsman?

All private landlords in England must be members of the scheme, whether they self-manage or use a letting agent. The obligation runs with the landlord, not the agent. If you use a fully managed service, your agent may handle registration as part of the onboarding process. If you self-manage, you must register directly through the scheme. Either way, the responsibility is yours if registration lapses.

Membership is per landlord rather than per property. You register once and all properties in your portfolio sit under that single registration. When you acquire a new property after registering, you update your record rather than starting again. The same applies to landlords in Huntingdon, across the A14 villages and throughout the wider Huntingdonshire patch: there is no local exemption and no portfolio-size threshold. A landlord with one property must register the same as one with ten.

How do you register with the scheme?

Registration is completed online through the government-approved scheme operator. Before you start, you will need:

• The address of every privately rented property in your portfolio, including any that are currently vacant between tenancies.
• Details of any active tenancies: start date, type, and whether the deposit is protected in a government-authorised scheme.
• Your deposit protection scheme references for each tenancy where a deposit is held.
• Payment of the annual membership fee, which covers the cost of running the service and is reviewed each year.

Once registered, your Ombudsman membership number should appear in all new tenancy agreements and in the prescribed information you provide to tenants at the start of a tenancy. This links your registration to each tenancy on record, and gives tenants the information they need to raise a complaint if one arises.

Registering for the Ombudsman is a separate step from registering on the Private Rented Sector database. Our earlier piece on the PRS database registration requirements covers that obligation in detail. Both are mandatory; completing one does not satisfy the other.

What types of complaint does the Ombudsman handle?

The Ombudsman's remit covers the landlord and tenant relationship throughout the life of a tenancy. Complaints within scope include:

• Failure to carry out repairs within a reasonable time, including damp, heating faults, and structural problems.
• Poor communication: failing to respond to correspondence, refusing access for repairs, or not providing required information.
• Deposit disputes: deductions a tenant considers unfair or unsupported by an inventory, or failure to protect the deposit in a recognised scheme.
• Problems with tenancy management: rent statements, service charge errors, or unlawful charges under the Tenant Fees Act.

The Ombudsman cannot rule on whether a tenancy should end. Disputes about possession, rent increases under Section 13, or tenancy terms remain for the First-tier Tribunal and the county courts. But for everything that happens during an ongoing tenancy, the Ombudsman is now the principal route for tenants to pursue a complaint.

Before raising a complaint with the Ombudsman, a tenant must first allow the landlord a reasonable opportunity to resolve it directly. The scheme requires a tenant to have exhausted the landlord's own complaints process before the Ombudsman will accept the case. That means having a documented complaints process is itself a good reason to get one in place.

What are the penalties for not joining or not cooperating?

Non-registration is a civil offence enforced by local authorities. Huntingdonshire District Council holds the power to issue financial penalties of up to £40,000 for each failure to register with the Ombudsman. The same penalty can apply where a landlord is registered but refuses to cooperate with an active investigation.

Beyond the fine, non-registration carries a secondary risk in possession proceedings. A court hearing a Section 8 claim will have sight of whether the landlord is compliant with mandatory registration requirements. While the absence of an Ombudsman membership does not automatically bar the claim, it is a visible gap that a tenant's representative can raise, and judges have discretion in how they weigh overall landlord conduct.

What should Huntingdonshire landlords do now?

If you have not registered with the Rented Sector Ombudsman, register now. The Act has been in force since 1 May 2026 and there is no grace period for this requirement. Self-managing landlords across Huntingdon, Brampton and the villages should complete registration through the scheme website and then update their tenancy agreement templates and prescribed information to include the membership number.

Alongside registering, put a simple complaints procedure in writing and give tenants a copy. It does not need to be elaborate: a contact address, an acknowledgement timescale (three working days is standard), and a resolution timescale (ten working days for most issues). Having that procedure documented means the Ombudsman can see you followed the required process if a complaint is ever escalated.

If your properties are managed by Villager Homes under our fully managed service, we handle Ombudsman registration, complaints procedures and compliance documentation as part of the service. Our Tenancy MOT is a good starting point for landlords who want a clear picture of where their current tenancies stand against the full 2026 compliance checklist, from Ombudsman registration through to EPC ratings and gas safety certificates.