Home Office updates Right to Rent Guidance for Landlords & Agents

The Home Office has updated Right to Rent guidance for Landlord's, Agents and Homeowners on conducting checks for privately rented properties.

All landlords in England have a responsibility to prevent those without lawful immigration status from accessing the private rented sector. You do this by conducting right to rent checks on all prospective adult tenants before the start date of a tenancy agreement, to make sure the person is not disqualified from renting a property by reason of their immigration status.

Areas of legislation that cover the Right to Rent include:

• Part 3, Chapter 1 of the Immigration Act 2014 (“the 2014 Act”) introduced a duty on landlords to check a tenant’s immigration status and a civil penalty regime to penalise those who let to disqualified persons.

• Section 33 D of the 2014 Act sets out circumstances where a Landlord may terminate a residential tenancy where all occupiers are disqualified from renting a property by virtue of their immigration status.

• The Immigration Act 2016 (the 2016 Act) introduced a criminal offence of knowingly letting to someone disqualified from renting a property

Non-compliance with Right to Rent legislation can lead to hefty fines and penalties, so it's important to stay ahead of the curve and seek advice from someone who knows!

Changes include:

• A simplification of the content; reducing the level of technical detail related to digital checks for British and Irish passport holders, or Irish passport cards

• Revised terminology; with 'Digital Verification Service (DVS) now used to incorporate terms such as Identity Service Providers (ISDPs) and Identity Document Validation Technology (IDVT). This has been introduced to coincide with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology publishing newly reformatted publications of the 'supplementary code' for digital right-to-rent checks, in line with the terminology used in the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.

• Updating references to eVisa's; advising individuals who may be issued a vignette to travel to the UK, that they must apply for an eVisa as soon as possible, even before travelling.