Right to Rent changes come in tomorrow (1st July) when landlords will need to start checking the immigration status of all adults before they let a property, regardless of their nationality.
EEA citizens and their family members now need immigration status in the UK, in the same way as other foreign nationals, and can’t rely on an EEA passport or national ID card to prove their right to rent.
Most will have applied to the EU Settlement Scheme and already have digital evidence of their UK immigration status.
The government has reassured landlords they won’t need to evict a tenant who doesn’t have settled status unless issued with a ‘Notice of letting to a disqualified person’ by the Home Office.
It has also confirmed that retrospective checks on existing EU, EEA or Swiss tenants won’t be required.
Discriminatory
But landlords will be held to be discriminatory if they only check people who they think are not UK citizens – all tenants must be checked regardless of their status.
Tenants with settled status can evidence their right to rent by sharing their immigration status digitally using the online Right to Rent service on GOV.UK which includes their photograph and personal details. Landlords can also make hard copy checks using a newly updated property documents list.
During Covid, landlords have not had to physically inspect Right to Rent documentation or conduct checks face-to-face.
Full document checks had been due to return on 21st June but, following the government’s decision to delay the full suspension of Covid restrictions in England, this has now been extended until the end of August meaning that scanned or videoed documents are still acceptable.
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