Useful information

If you are renting out your home or a room in your home, you must check that anyone aged 18 or over, who is living in the property, is legally entitled to rent a home in England. This includes people living in the property but not named on the tenancy agreement, and applies whether or not you have a tenancy agreement in place.

The Right to Rent was made compulsory on 1 February 2016, and requires all landlords and agents to:

• Check which adults will use the property as their main home
• Ask for original documents that prove they can live in the UK
• Check that the documents give them the right to rent your property
• Check that each tenant’s documents are genuine and belong to them
• Make and keep copies of the documents and record the date you made the check.

You can receive an unlimited fine or be sent to prison if you rent your property to someone who isn’t allowed to stay in England.

It is against the law to only check people you think aren’t British citizens. You must check all new tenants.

You can find more information about Right to Rent on the government website.

An EPC gives a property an energy efficiency rating from A (most efficient) to G (least efficient) and is valid for 10 years.

Energy Performance Certificates are needed whenever a property is:

• built
• sold
• rented.

It is essential you obtain an EPC for potential buyers or tenants before you market your property to sell or rent. But don’t worry, our expert team are trained in EPC’s, so we can arrange for this for you. Please speak to our friendly advisors to find out more.  

You must ensure that all electrical appliances in the property are working and safe, and that freestanding electrical appliances are PAT tested. It is a legal requirement for the electrics in a property to be safe to use and an as of April 2021 an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) is compulsory. We can arrange these for you and advise on how much it is likely to cost.

You must arrange for a registered Gas Safe heating engineer to inspect all gas appliances and issue a certificate on an annual basis. We can arrange this for you, and can advise how much it is likely to cost.

You must ensure that you have working smoke detectors on all floors (we will check this at every property inspection). You must also ensure that all furnishings are fire resistant and comply with the regulations set out in the Fire Safety Amendment 1993.

If your property is classed as a House of Multiple Occupation by LACoRS, it must have a fire assessment report, and all the work that is stated in the report must be completed within a given time period. We can assist with this.

It is mandatory to ensure your property has fitted carbon monoxide alarms in rooms that contain a fixed combustion applicance, this includes any appliance that uses fuel to generate heat, but excludes gas cookers.

You must refund the Local Authority for any overpayment of Local Housing Allowance, if necessary.