BREAKING: Home Office extends Right to Rent checks deadline until 5th April 2022

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Landlords are now able to carry on completing Right to Rent immigration checks via virtual interviews and remote document checking until the 5^th April next year, the Home Office has announced.

The government had said previously that new tenants and their documents would have to be checked face-to-face from 31^st August onwards, but this has now been extended.

The statement by the Home Office (pictured) makes it clear that the delay is in part due to the technology advances recently that were developed to help tenants and their documents be checked safely during Covid.

“We have made the decision to defer the date following the positive feedback we received about the ability to conduct checks remotely,” the Home Office statement says.

“We initiated a review of the availability of specialist technology to support a system of digital right to rent checks in the future.

Digital solution

“The intention is to introduce a new digital solution to include many who are unable to use the Home Office online checking service, including UK and Irish citizens.

“This will enable checks to continue to be conducted remotely but with enhanced security.

“Deferring the end date of the adjusted checks to 5 April 2022 ensures the Right to Rent Scheme continues to operate in a manner which supports landlords and letting agents, whilst we look to implement a long-term, post-pandemic solution.”

The technology is now all the more needed – landlords or their letting agents habe been required to check all tenants regardless of their nationality including UK citizens since last month.

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Rent controls in Scotland will be ‘catastrophic’ warn letting agents

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Property professionals have warned that Scotland’s decision to introduce a nationwide rent control regime will be ‘catastrophic’.

The proposed scheme, which is likely to become law next year, is a product of a new power sharing agreement between the SNP and Scottish Greens.

Part of the deal is that parts of the Greens’ radical housing manifesto will be turned into legislation, including rent controls.

The manifesto commits the party to ‘transform the private rented sector, providing greater security for tenants, regulating rents, and improving standards’, including a points-based system of rent controls, along with a winter evictions ban – a policy common in several parts of Europe – and make all grounds for evictions discretionary rather than mandatory.

National estate agency trade body Propertymark says rent controls are not the answer and that what’s needed instead is the ‘proper enforcement of existing rules, additional supply and more social housing’.

Ill thought through

Its Scottish representative Daryl McIntosh adds, “At a time when demand for privately rented homes is massively outstripping supply, several of the Greens’ proposals risk deterring private landlords from the market.

“The Private Rented Sector provides a vital service in the housing system and recently this contribution feels forgotten – surely an ill thought through policy objective.”

Leading letting agent David Alexander (pictured) says he would support limiting rent rises in popular city-centre postcodes to one or two percent a year to match inflation, but says more draconian ‘rent caps’ would be impossible to implement – i.e. would it be based on previous rent, square footage, size, desirability of the property and so on?

“Those who wish to lock the private sector into a rent control straitjacket – especially for ideological purposes – should remember the law of unintended consequences and be careful what they wish for,” he adds.

Read more: Step away from disastrous rent controls, landlords urge Sadiq Khan.

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BREAKING: Demand for pet-friendly rental properties up 120%, says Rightmove

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Rightmove has reported a deluge of tenants looking for pet-friendly properties to rent following the long months of Covid.

This includes a 120% jump in searches on its portal for rental properties whose landlord accepts dogs and cats while many agents have also reported a deluge of tenants getting in contact to find pet-friendly properties, the portal says.

Government and pet charity data reveals that just over 50% of all households now have a pet after some 3.2 million additional households purchased a dog or cat during the pandemic.

Richard O’Neill, MD of Romans Lettings, says: “There has been an increase in demand for pet-friendly homes over the past year, which we attribute to the pandemic and a resultant shift in priorities.

“Where more people are spending more time in their homes and now have more space, it is likely that they are fulfilling past ambitions of owning a pet and now feel as though they have the environment and lifestyle to facilitate that.”

Katinka Hill (pictured), a lettings director at Chestertons, says: “About half of the phone calls our offices are receiving now are from tenants who own a pet and need a suitable property.

“It’s a sharp increase compared to the number we were getting pre-lockdown but this is not surprising as so many people have bought pets during the pandemic.”

Campaigner Jen Berezai (pictured) of AdvoCATS, which works with multiple agencies across the animal welfare and private rental sectors, says: “We recognise that thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of people are missing out on the joy and benefits of pet ownership, just because they can’t afford to get on the housing ladder.

“This is the reason behind our Heads For Tails! report and forthcoming campaign to amend the Tenant Fees Act (2019) and make the situation easier and fairer for both sides. Change is long overdue – watch this space.”

The Rightmove research will put extra pressure on the government to make pet-friendly PRS properties easier to rent, although it faces hostility from many landlords.

A recent poll by LandlordZONE revealed that two thirds of landlords are unwilling to accept pets in their properties.

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New-build market grinds to a halt as EWS1 argument continues to rage

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The latest research by StripeHomes, has revealed that new-build house prices boomed by as much as 20% across parts of England during the first half of this year, but transaction levels have ground to a halt as EWS1 requirements continue to prove problematic.

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