When looking to rent a property it is no longer a simple case of viewing a property, putting down a deposit and paying the first month’s rent before moving in. There are several steps to go through before that. These days landlords and their agents need to carry out legally required right to rent checks and also, typically, they will require referencing for prospective tenants to ensure that they are trustworthy and have the finances to pay for the monthly rent. For new renters, with all these requirements, legislation and preferences, it pays to have all your documents ready for a landlord or their agent to make this process a lot simpler. In this article we will take a look at what paperwork a prospective tenant should have available.
Right to Rent Checks
These checks are legally mandated and are carried out to prove that the prospective tenant has the legal right to live in the UK. The documents that are required depend on what type of ID the tenant has and whether they are from the UK or not.
UK residents
For British and Irish citizens, who still need to go through right to rent checks, a passport is typically all that is needed. It is important to note that the passport can actually be an expired passport and still be accepted. If you do not have a passport, then a valid driving licence and an original birth certificate would be acceptable.
Non-UK residents
For those that have biometric identification such as a residence card or permit, for those with pre-settled or settled status and for those who have applied for a visa using the UK immigration: ID Check App, a share code will need to be supplied rather than the original documents. It is important to note here that, for people who meet these criteria, using the Government’s online portal to get a share code and then check against that share code, is the only way a right to rent check can be carried out and supplying the original biometric documents is no longer allowed. The caveat to this is if the tenant can supply other acceptable and original documents. In this case a landlord or their agent cannot insist that the online portal is used.
This brings us on nicely to those who do not have biometric identification and those who do not wish to use the online portal. There is quite a long list of documents which are acceptable to prove an unlimited right to stay or a time limited right to stay. These are defined in the Government’s guide to right to rent checks in Annexe A. List A group 1 defines the documents which, if one of them is supplied, provide an unlimited right to rent; List A Group 2 is a list of documents which requires two documents in the list to be produced which also provide an unlimited right to rent. List B defines documents which can be accepted to prove a time limited right to stay. If you provide any of these, your landlord will need to carry out follow up checks.
Referencing documents
In order to check that you are going to look after the property and that you can afford the rent, the landlord or the agent may want to see (as a minimum) copies of the following:
- 3 months’ worth of payslips to prove your income
- Copy of a recent bill to prove your current address such as council tax, gas or electric
- 2 months’ worth of bank statements to show your outgoings.
- Details of your employer so that they can ask for an employer reference
- If you have rented before, they might ask for a reference letter from your previous landlord
Before looking for a rental property it is worth making sure that you have all these documents to hand. It is a highly competitive market out there with demand out-stripping supply. So for prospective tenants that are able to move fast and provide all the required documents quickly will have a better chance of success of securing a rental property. Also, having everything to hand will significantly reduce the time taken from viewing the property to moving in and it is certainly a lot less stressful than trying to get all the documents together when the clock is ticking.
