The latest (2021) English Private Landlord Survey (EPLS) was released on 26 May. The EPLS, commissioned by the Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities, is a national survey of landlords and letting agents who own and/or manage privately rented properties in England.

The aim of the EPLS is to inform government understanding of the characteristics and experiences of landlords and how they acquire, let, manage and maintain privately rented accommodation.

The number of households in the private rented sector (PRS) increased by 45% between 2008-09 and 2020-21, from 3.1m to 4.4m households. However, since 2010, there have been a number of policy changes affecting private landlords. These include tax changes for Buy-to-Let landlords, changes to the Stamp Duty Land Tax, tightening lending criteria on Buy-to-Let mortgages and the growing role of the Build to Rent sector. More recently, the government has announced plans to reform the private rented sector, including the removal of ‘no fault’ evictions under s. 21 of the Housing and Planning Act.

Main findings from the survey
There are approximately 3.9m live deposits registered with one of the three government-backed Tenancy Deposit Protection (TDP) schemes that operate in England. These correspond to an estimated 438,000 registrants (landlords and agents), only some (about 408,000) were landlords who had registered the deposits themselves. It is estimated that the TDP schemes cover 59% to 77% of households in the private rented sector.