There has been a dramatic increase in Right to Rent checks, with numbers soaring by 577% compared to the previous year. Right to Rent is a government initiative to check the nationality and immigration status of anyone who is thinking of renting a room or property in the UK. Often confused with other background checks including DBS checks, right to rent checks are purely about someone’s immigration and nationality status and do not look at anyone’s criminal record.
Right to Rent Fines
Under the Right to Rent Scheme, penalties for non-compliance have increased greatly this year, with landlords and lettings agents facing fines of up to £20,000 for failing to check tenants properly. It is the responsibility of all landlords and letting agents in England to ensure that individuals without lawful immigration status do not access the private rented sector. The civil penalty for non-compliance by landlords and letting agents has been increased, with fines up to £5,000 per lodger and £10,000 per occupier for a first offence. Repeat offenders face even higher penalties of up to £10,000 per lodger and £20,000 per occupier. Recent research indicates a sharp rise in fines issued this year so far, with January to March 2024 alone recording fines totalling £165,680, more than the total level of funds for the whole of 2023.
Changes to the Right to Rent System
In October 2022, the government’s Home Office guidance on Right to Rent checks underwent significant changes. Agents and landlords were no longer permitted to accept identity documents from tenants by email and were required to use either approved online identity checking technology or conduct in-person document checks. It took time for awareness of these changes to filter through to the general population, and this is reflected in the statistics on fines.
Increasingly, letting agents and landlords are using cutting-edge technology for Right to Rent identity checks. This identity checking software uses biometric data from passports and other photo ID documents to compare with someone’s image captured using a mobile phone camera or by a webcam.
Implications for Tenants
The recent changes to the Right to Rent rules aim to streamline the process for letting agents and landlords and to make life easier for tenants who are applying to rent one of their properties. News about the high numbers of landlords and agents who are being fined for not carrying out Right to Rent checks properly, or who are ignoring the rules and letting to people in the UK illegally means that tenants can expect to be asked to produce documents and prove their identity, irrespective of how long they have been in the UK, or whether they have rented from that landlord previously.
Landlords also have to be non-discriminatory in how they operate Right to Rent checks, and therefore usually just ask everyone to produce documents. Being asked to have a Right to Rent check doesn’t imply that the landlord does not trust you or feels you have something to hide – they are just protecting themselves from the risk of a huge fine.
