Commenting on the Housing and Planning minister’s announcement of a national register, Richard Bates, Consumer Focus, said:

“We agree that tenants should have access to the information they need about potential landlords.  A register would take some of the guess work out of renting a property.

“Currently, anyone looking to rent a property from a private landlord has to make a major financial commitment based largely on their intuition about a landlord’s character, and typically, following a brief and largely subjective viewing of a property.  And yet landlords can demand significant amounts of personal and financial information from prospective tenants.

“Consumer Focus is exploring ways of achieving a better balance of information between landlord and tenant.  The more information available about a landlord’s track record and state of the property, the greater the incentive for standards to improve.”