Accreditation: how does it work?
What are the requirements?
- be an owner of private residential properties, currently letting or with the intention to let, in England or Wales. If let property is owned by a company then we recommend at least one of the directors become an NRLA Accredited Landlord. The scheme is not appropriate for local authority owned or housing association properties where other agreements already apply. The scheme is not aimed at letting agents or property managers, but they are welcome to become accredited with us if they are also landlords in their own right.
- be a valid paid up member of the NRLA.
- meet the Fit and Proper Person criteria.
- accept and adhere to the NRLA Code of Practice.
- meet the requirements for Continuous Professional Development within the first 12 months of registering and continue to meet them at each accreditation anniversary; that is a minimum of 5 valid 'Core' CPD points and 5 valid 'Standard' CPD points. Core points need to be renewed every 5 years and standard points need to be renewed annually.
- co-operate and assist NRLA to investigate and resolve complaints made about my practice as a private residential landlord in accordance with the NRLA Code of Practice.
Read full terms and conditions of the scheme.
How do I become accredited?
If you have not been accredited with NLA or RLAAS before, or your accreditation had expired at 27/07/2020, then you will need to follow these steps:
- Join the NRLA if you are not a current member.
- Register for the scheme
- Choose your core training
- Update your core training every 5 years
- Undertake and log 5 standard CPD points each year
- Maintain NRLA membership
After successful registration for the accreditation scheme, the member must earn 5 core CPD points to become accredited. From August 2020 we are automatically recording when any of our members undertake core learning, so some members will find they are already accredited as soon as they register, because the system already knows they have completed the core learning. Other members who undertook core learning with NLA or RLA in the past and had not logged it before, will be able to manually declare this once they have registered for the scheme and staff will be able to check and verify. Core CPD Guide
Once the Core CPD has been verfified, they will receive a certificate to confirm accreditation and will be able to download the accredited logo or ‘badge’ for their use.
In addition to the core points, another 5 'standard' points of CPD need to be obtained each year. There are loads of ways to earn these, some are automatically logged for you, some you will need to manually self-declare. Many courses, meetings, webinars and journals from external organisations will also earn you CPD – you just have to remember to log on and declare it. Standard CPD Guide
NRLA administrators will undertake random annual audits of CPD. Accredited members are required to cooperate in providing any information requested to confirm the attainment of CPD and training.
Email reminders will go out before each anniversary, so it’s important that to keep your email address up to date on your website profile.
Can I passport into the NRLA scheme from another UK accreditation scheme?
Many courses and training offered by other major UK accrediting bodies will also earn members their core points, and most meetings and events that can be verified by us as professional development for residential landlords will be able to be logged as standard CPD points.