On 29 September 2026 the government announced that, "for the first time ever", it "intends to introduce independent regulation of property agents". Agents will need a licence and qualifications, and a regulator will be able to take the licence away.

That would be a big change for block management. As the government's own 2025 consultation put it, "under existing law, anyone can become a managing agent."

But for now this is an announcement, not a law. There are no new rules to meet yet, and nobody can tell you what the licence will require. Here's what has actually been said, what hasn't, and what is worth doing now whatever the final rules turn out to be.

What the government has said

The announcement is short. On agents, it makes four points:

There will be a regulator. The government "intends to introduce independent regulation of property agents".
The regulator can set standards. It "can set codes of practice, such as standards of conduct and proper complaint handling for those they regulate."
Agents will need a licence and qualifications. "Property agents will be required to obtain a licence to do the job, as well as appropriate qualifications to operate."
A licence can be lost. "If they fall foul of the required standards, the regulator would have the power to take their licences away."

The release says "property agents", which the government has used as a term covering "estate, letting, and managing agents". It repeated the plan in a written statement to Parliament on 12 October.

What it hasn't said

The release ends by promising to "set out more information in due course". Until then, the big questions are open:

When it starts. There is no date, only that the government is committed to bringing the changes forward "as soon as possible".
Who the regulator will be. The release doesn't name one.
Which law will do it. The release doesn't name a bill.
Which qualifications will count. The release says only "appropriate qualifications".

How we got here

The idea is not new, which is why it's worth reading the earlier documents for clues:

July 2019: a working group chaired by Lord Best recommended a new independent regulator, a mandatory code of practice, licensing and minimum qualifications.
July 2025: the government consulted on mandatory qualifications for managing agents. It proposed level 4 as the standard, which it described as "equivalent to the 1st year of a bachelor's degree", with lower or higher levels for some roles.
May 2026: the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee recommended an independent regulator in its report on the draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill.
July 2026: the government's response to the 2025 consultation dealt with service charge transparency, and said of qualifications: "We will provide a separate response on these proposals in due course."
September 2026: the licensing announcement.

So level 4 is the best clue to where qualifications may land, but it is a proposal and not a decision. The way they would be enforced is less settled still. The 2025 consultation preferred making agents join a designated professional body, and said it would revisit that if Lord Best's wider recommendations were taken forward. A regulator is one of those recommendations.

Does this apply to RMC directors?

It depends on how your block is run.

If your RMC appoints a managing agent, the announcement is about your agent. It says nothing about new duties for your board, but it's a good moment to ask your agent the questions further down.

If your RMC manages the block itself, nobody has said. The announcement doesn't mention volunteer directors, residents' management companies or right to manage companies. The 2025 consultation's chapter on qualifications was about agents who are "appointed by the landlord".

The closest thing to a clue is Lord Best's report, which looked at right to manage companies and treated them as out of scope at the time. It noted that "some of these companies are very small bodies for whom full regulation would be disproportionate", but also that "some are substantial entities upon whom many leaseholders depend", and it recommended powers to extend regulation to them later. It didn't address RMCs by name.

So don't assume you're exempt, and don't assume you're caught. Wait for the detail.

What a regulator is likely to look at

Nobody can say for certain, because no code exists yet. The best guide is Lord Best's report, which the 2025 consultation said the government was "looking again at". It recommended one overarching code for all property agents, including these principles:

"Agents must maintain appropriate accounts and records of their business activities."
"Agents must have effective consumer complaints procedures in place."
"Agents must make appropriate arrangements to protect their clients' money."
"Agents must ensure that all staff are qualified and capable to handle responsibilities delegated to them."

The report also said that a regulator should check an agent's legal obligations before granting a licence, such as belonging to a redress scheme, and that the agent should pass a fit-and-proper person test.

Those are recommendations from 2019, not rules. But they come down to one thing: being able to show what you did, when you did it and why.

What to get in order now

Everything here is worth doing whether or not a regulator ever asks:

Check your redress scheme membership. This one is already the law. Under a 2014 order, property management work in England requires membership of an approved redress scheme, and the 2025 consultation names two: The Property Ombudsman and Property Redress. Local authorities can issue fines of up to £5,000.
List who holds which qualification. You can't know the final requirement yet, but you can know where each person stands against the level 4 proposal.
Write down your complaints procedure. Complaint handling is the one standard the announcement names.
Log every complaint. Record what came in, who dealt with it, what was said and how it ended.
Be able to show how client money is held. Know which accounts it sits in, and who can move it.
Keep records with the block, not with a person. Respondents to the 2025 consultation raised problems "where managing agents have changed and records have not transferred". Who was instructed, why that contractor, and where the certificate is should all survive a change of staff or of agent.
Note your relationships with brokers and insurers. This one is on a separate track from licensing. The July 2026 response says: "We will prescribe disclosure of relationships and arrangements between landlords and managing agents with brokers and insurers."

That last point is a reminder that licensing isn't the nearest change. On service charge transparency, the same response says leaseholders "will start to see changes during 2027".

Three questions for your managing agent

If you're an RMC director with an agent, these are fair questions to put to them now:

Which redress scheme do you belong to?
Who looks after our block, and what qualifications do they hold?
What is your complaints procedure, and how many complaints about our block did you log last year?

A good agent will have the answers ready.

How Block Guardian helps

Block Guardian can't give you a licence or a qualification, and it doesn't hold or move client money. Nobody can yet tell you what a regulator will want to see, and we won't pretend to.

What it does is keep the record, so that when someone asks what happened, you can show them. A complaint can be recorded as a case, with a reference number, its stage and who it's waiting on. Emails from a connected Microsoft 365 mailbox can be filed to that case. Compliance checks keep their due dates, reminders and certificates. Each contractor has a supplier page showing the assets it looks after, the jobs it's doing and the inspections it carried out. And an audit log records who did what and when, and can't be edited afterwards.

If you're a managing agent, you can see how it works across a portfolio, or start a free 45-day trial.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Nothing described here is law yet except where we say so, and the details may change as the government publishes more.