We have provided information previously on this site about the new obligation for landlords to carry out immigration checks on their tenants. We didn’t go into great detail because it hadn’t yet passed into law and was limited geographically. All that will change from February 2016.
What Is Right To Rent?
All citizens of the UK, EEA and Switzerland have a right to rent here in the UK – naturally, illegal immigrants do not and until now there has been no obligation for landlords to act. Concern over illegal immigration led to a policy from December 2014 trialled in the midlands of “right to rent” checks which put property owners under the obligation to check the immigration status of anyone applying to be a tenant.
This applies to most student landlords too and to anyone managing social housing. Right to rent checks should be carried out by any agent, property owner or anyone managing a property on their behalf.
Your Legal Obligations
The law stipulates that as the landlord / property owner, you have the legal obligation to check the immigration status of all people living in your home within 28 days of taking up their tenancy. You must carry out checks for all adults (over the age of 18) living in your property. This is regardless of how many names are on the tenancy agreement. If the agreement is signed to one person and there are three adults, you are responsible for checking the legal status of all three adults. You may be fined up to £3000 if you fail to make the checks or keep a record.
Note: Some concern has been expressed that landlords will automatically refuse people with non-British sounding names, motivated out of prejudice rather than genuine concern of their legal status. Legal immigrants have the right to sue under the 2010 Equality Act should this happen.
Exemptions
As mentioned above, most student housing is not exempt. Exemptions apply to halls of residence and in cases where a university institution has approached you and nominated a student to live in your accommodation (a Residential Tenancy Agreement). If you are approached by a university to house students, you will not be expected to make these checks – the university should have already verified their legal right to be in the UK.
Any property owner whose tenants predate the obligation to check are exempt; as most student agreements are for one academic year, 2015-16 students will not require checks but 2016-17 will be. If you are renting a flat to a couple who expect to be there several years, then so long as the contract is ongoing and not subject to renegotiation every year you will not need to perform right to rent checks.
For more details, the gov.uk website has produced a short document going into more detail here. More documents (for property owners and tenants) are listed here.