Official research has found that self-managing landlords are the least prepared when dealing with the legal requirements of the official Right to Rent scheme, which requires landlords of privately rented accommodation to conduct checks on all new tenants to establish if they have a legal right to be in the UK and therefore have the right to rent, with stiff penalties for those who knowingly dodge completing the checks.

The Government research included a ‘mystery shopper’ exercise involving 2,000 tenants who approached landlords and agents, plus some 300 interviews with landlords. This was all undertaken by independent canvassers at BVA BDRC with Professor Kath Scanlon of The London School of Economics and Political Science. It found that those landlords who don’t use a letting agent are the least likely to fully understand their legal responsibilities when onboarding new tenants via the Right to Rent scheme.

Although overall awareness of the scheme has been growing fast since its introduction in 2015, only half of all landlords who claimed knowledge of the scheme considered themselves ‘well or quite well’ informed.