Landlords not using a letting agent don't understand their legal responsibilities under Right to Rent

Landlords not using a letting agent are least prepared when dealing with the legal requirements of the official Right to Rent scheme.

Home Office research has shown that landlords not using a letting agent don't fully understand their legal responsibilities when onboarding new tenants via the Right to Rent scheme. The research found that landlords who were managing their properties themselves were the least prepared when dealing with all of the legal requirements of the official Right to Rent scheme.

Over a quarter of households that are in the private rented sector in England are headed up by someone born abroad, meaning that migrants and those people born overseas account for a large minority of private tenants in England.

The Right to Rent scheme means that landlords of privately rented accommodation are required to carry out checks on all of their new tenants to ascertain whether or not that they have the legal right to be in the UK and therefore have the right to rent.

The Home Office says that the Right to Rent procedures and any consequences arising from misunderstanding them could affect hundreds of thousands of tenant households, and their landlords.

As part of the research, the Home office carried out a "mystery shopping" exercise and found that there was no statistically significant evidence of systematic, unlawful race discrimination as a result of the Right to Rent scheme. However, they did find that black and minority ethnic (BAME) applicants were significantly less likely to be sent details of a rental property, though the evidence didn't suggest that this was a specific result of the Right to Rent scheme.

Chief Executive of Propertymark, Nathan Emerson, said “It is clear from this review that self-managing landlords have a knowledge gap and it’s not surprising.

“Right to Rent has been through many complex changes in the last three years with COVID-19 lockdowns, the end of freedom of movement due to the UK’s exit from the EU and the introduction of the Home Office’s real time digital systems.

“Professional agents, particularly those in membership with a body like Propertymark, take their compliance responsibilities seriously and dedicate time and CPD to ensuring they are fully compliant.”

If you want to find out more about your obligations as a landlord, or to speak to us about managing your property for you instead, call 0161 511 5339 or contact us to speak to one of our lettings specialists.