This page aims to give you an overview of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 and what it means for landlords, agents and tenants.

You will be able to learn about the fundamentals of the act, what happens if you don’t comply, conditions of your licence and auditing requirements, information in the public domain and where you can go to get more information to answer more specific questions.

Rent Smart Wales is providing access to data that allows the government to better understand this sector than ever before. The data assists local authorities with their housing duties.

Rent Smart Wales also facilitates better communication with the sector, which was particularly important during the outbreak of COVID 19 for instance.

A quick tip: Make sure your contact details are up to date with Rent Smart Wales and that you have opted in for communications. 

Rent Smart Wales also imposes licence conditions and conducts fit and proper assessments to prevent inappropriate people from being awarded a licence.

One of the decisions a landlord must make is who is going to take care of the day to day management of the rental property?

From a licencing perspective, it is important because if you choose to self manage you will also need to apply for a licence.

If you use a managing agent you won’t need to get a licence.

You can read more about what is included in our fully managed lettings packages in the lettings section.

Failure to register, obtain a licence or to update certain specified information in your account within 28 days, is an offence.

Both the licensing authority (Rent Smart Wales) or your local authority have a range of Enforcement powers:

• Fixed penalty notices up to £250
• Rent Repayment Orders
• Rent Stopping Orders
• Summary convictions (with unlimited fines)
• Being unable to re-gain possession of your property due to restrictions on use of section 21 or section 8 procedures.

Some of your information will be available on the public register.

Tale a look at it to check the information is correct :  Public Register

You can view the George Property & Financial Rent Smart Wales licence here :  George Estate Agents Limited 

If you own one property individually, and another property jointly with another person you will need a separate registration for each property.

Different ownership arrangements require their own separate registration. 

Anyone undertaking letting and management activities will also need a licence.

The Act only applies to domestic tenancies.

Some circumstances where registration is not required:

• Where an owner-occupier has one or more lodgers in their home and the lodger shares amenities with the homeowner.
• Where the residential dwelling is part of an agricultural agreement.
• Commercial lets
• Accommodation rented on licence (e.g University Owned)
• Holiday lets
• Residential accommodation if it is not a permanent structure
• Freeholder leasehold agreements

You will need your own licence if you decide to self manage your property.

Here is a list of letting and management activities that trigger the need for a licence

Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.

This is a government-approved independent body that serves as an ‘escalation point’ for complaints that clients think were dealt with incorrectly by the agent. 

George Property & Financial (George Estate Agents Limited) are registered with the Property Ombudsman Scheme. You can search for our registration here.

You can view our complaints procedure here.