Do you know IF your tenant has the right to rent your property?
‘Right to Rent’ legislation (part of the new Immigration Act 2014) started on 1st February 2016 – and getting it wrong could cost landlords up to £3,000 per tenant in fines.
The new legislation brought in measures to make it easier for landlords to evict illegal tenants as well as a new criminal offence targeted at unscrupulous landlords who repeatedly fail to carry out the right to rent checks. From February 2016 landlords are therefore required to check, and confirm details of potential tenant’s visas, passports, and the compliant identification documents.
Each and every new tenant (even sub-lets or lodgers) are required to complete a ‘Right to Rent’ check – whether or not the tenant is thought to be a British, or European Economic Area (EEA), or Swiss national. These checks are also required each time a time-limited Right to Rent document comes up for a renewal, and/or when a visa is renewed – and the landlord is required to re-check the validity.
Copies of valid documents also need to be kept by the landlord (for 12 months after the end of the tenancy) for any spot-checks or investigations by Home Office inspectors, in order to provide evidence that these checks have been carried out correctly.
In order to assist landlords with the new Right to Rent legislation, The Letting People (working in liaison with a fully-compliant insurance and reference company) offer landlords support with recording tenant’s documents – and with automated updates on when future document inspections need to be carried out.
