Right to Rent hits Southampton today... are you ready?

As you are no doubt aware Right to Rent comes into effect today, this places requirements on landlords and their agents to check documents of prospective tenants before issuing a tenancy agreement, listed below is a brief outline of what you must do and the relevant link to Government websites to assist you.

Right to Rent checks should be carried out on all adult tenants for new tenancy agreements in England from 1^st February 2016. Landlords/Agents, could face a financial penalty of up to £3,000 per tenant if they are found to be letting property to someone who has no right to stay in the UK.

The checks must be carried out on all adult occupants proposing to occupy the premises whether or not they are named on the tenancy. The rules apply to new tenancy agreements from February 1^st onwards, with existing tenancy agreements unaffected.

The basic steps are:

1      Establish who will live at the property as their only or main home.

2      Obtain a tenant’s original versions of one or more acceptable documents for adult occupiers.

3      Check the documents with the tenant present

4      Copy and keep the copied documents on file and record the date of the check

Ø  A record must be kept of every document checked, a hard copy or scanned copy saved as a pdf is acceptable. These must be retained for the duration of the tenancy and a further 12 months after the tenancy ends. You must also make a record of the date you conducted the check. The documents should be destroyed after the 12 months in line with the Data Protection Act.

Ø  If the prospective tenant presents a passport then copy any page with the expiry date, nationality, date of birth, signature, leave expiry date, biometric details and any page containing the information indicating the holder has permission to enter or remain in the UK.

Ø  If they present something other than a passport the whole document must be copied including front and back pages.

5      Any person in occupancy pre 1^st February 2016, as a named tenant, authorised or unauthorised permitted occupier, licensee, and lodger has a pre-existing right of occupancy and are therefore exempt from Right to Rent checks but only as long as they sit tight, and don’t relocate, and they don’t bring anyone else into the property authorised or unauthorised, and after 1^st February 2016 and there is no new AST agreement with different names either Tenant or Landlord.

6      If the Tenant brings an authorised occupier into the property aged over 18, post 1^st February 2016, the Landlord/Agent is responsible for the checks. If post 1^st February 2016 the Tenant brings in an unauthorised occupier then the tenant is responsible for the checks. (As long as you can show the Landlord /Agent did not know of the unauthorised occupier).

7      Children in the property once attaining 18yrs are ignored until they move and occupy another property.

8      Any Tenant or occupier who has right of occupation and is not time limited can be forgotten about until they change property.

9      Any Tenant or occupier with Right to Rent but time limited must be checked again either just before the expiry date of the Right to Rent, or 12 months from the initial check date, whichever is longer.

10   Any Tenant or occupier found not to have Right to Rent must be reported to the Home Office. 

If the tenant is only allowed to be in the UK for a limited period of time, Landlords/Agents will have to carry out follow-up checks at a later date.

The Home Office has produced a new guide to checking immigration documents which is attached for your information. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/496578/landlords_on_right_to_rent_civil_penalties_guidance.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-rent-document-checks-a-user-guide