Some landlords and letting agents are unaware that merely checking the person named on the tenancy agreement is not enough; Right to Rent applies to everyone occupying the property – so you’ll need to check everyone’s paperwork in turn.
Also, the legislation applies to nannies, au pairs, carers and other live-in staff, so there are times when Right to Rent might sit alongside employment documentation rather than a standard tenancy application for a rental property.
To give agents as much flexibility as possible, we now offer a standalone Right to Rent check, to ensure landlords’ duties are covered when our tenancy vetting process (which includes Right to Rent as standard) might not be appropriate or necessary.
We’ve worked closely with ARLA to gain clarification from the Home Office over a number of immigration cases that aren’t mentioned in the original regulations, but crop up surprisingly often:
Further exceptions and omissions will doubtless continue to arise, and we’ll keep working with ARLA – who have been extremely helpful partners – to provide clarity for letting agents nationwide.
In each case, our mantra remains that confirming the documents are genuine is no use unless they are the right documents in the first place.
Unfortunately, this is an area where many letting agents are ill-equipped: for example, our training sessions have confirmed that few know a valid UK passport saying, “British Citizen” is very different from one that says “British National Overseas”.
Please contact us on admin@keysafetv.com if you have any questions about Right to Rent legislation.
