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Inventory clerks may rescue landlords from Right To Rent backlog

A possible backlog of Right To Rent checks created by new Home Office rules could be alleviated by inventory clerks.

Since March, a temporary system has been in place allowing landlords and agents to conduct Right to Rent checks remotely.

However, the Home Office has stated that within eight weeks of the temporary measures being lifted - expected when the pandemic eases early next year - landlords and agents must carry out full in-person retrospective checks on tenants who started their tenancy during the crisis.

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ARLA Propertymark, acting on behalf of letting agents, has warned the Home Office that the sheer scale of work required to complete retrospective checks within the eight-week timeframe will be impossible.

"We fully support ARLA Propertymark's view. However, if retrospective checks are required as currently proposed, our inventory clerks can help landlords and agents to handle the additional work" says Nick Lyons, chief executive of the 65-office No Letting Go, the UK's largest provider of inventory services.

"Our clerks have experience of carrying out Right to Rent checks as many of them conducted them on behalf of agents and landlords when compiling inventory check-ins during the spring lockdown” he continues.

Right To Rent has remained a controversial and time consuming job for landlords but No Letting Go says inventory clerks can carry out immigration checks provided they have the name of each tenant plus the type of ID to be inspected.

The inventory clerk is then able to ensure the ID matches the landlord's records and subsequently take photographic evidence of the ID and renter.

"Providing this service during routine property visits allows us to help agents and landlords stay on top of their compliance obligations. Going forward, renters may be reluctant to go back to agents' offices, so it makes sense to complete Right to Rent checks in-person when conducting a property visit” adds Lyons.

In detail, he says the inventory clerk would carry out the property visit as normal, checking the ID of all tenants aged 18 or over. They will take a note of all people living at the property, whether or not they are listed on the tenancy agreement, and ascertain who needs to be verified.

 

The clerk will then ask each renter if they can take a photograph of them to ensure they show a true likeness to the ID provided. All photographs and documentation is added to the relevant documentation and uploaded into the back-office system.

"There are a range of changes to the Right to Rent scheme in the pipeline which, alongside the introduction of retrospective checks, could put significant pressure on landlords over the coming months" Lyons adds.

"Property professionals will also be managing the overall impact of the pandemic and continually growing workloads, so any help they can get from partners such as inventory clerks to ensure they meet their compliance obligations could be invaluable" he concludes.

Want to comment on this story? If so...if any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals on any basis, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.

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    • 03 December 2020 09:11 AM

    Why do Landlords or Letting Agents have to do the job of the Home Office, when we have already paid for them via our taxes?

    Surely they should be chasing down the 3,000,000 illegal immigrants, NOT us????????

  • girish mehta

    It’s not landlords job to check immigration status. That is home office job. Instead of fines the agents and landlords should be paid for their services. As landlords have to pay for these services . Again the government is getting job done on cheap. Incompetent politician and past clueless ministers jumping on racist policies. Good thing we had EU to keep an eye on these politicians.

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    "Right to Rent " check nightmares, James Brokenshire is talking rubbish so he has been checking with a panel of experts, who were they more Graduates in suites, certainly not LL's. I have being doing it for 2 years and still struggling, just more unpaid work load for LL's to drive me up the wall. Why don't Mr Brokenshire sit down with his Panel of experts and write a list of all the unpaid requirements that has been imposed on Private LL's this last 15 years, they might even come to the conclusion that its not viable anymore. The Courts now Require bundles before you can even apply to go to Court, maybe even like Deposit Resolution as a mediator go between you & the Tenant, do they not think that we have not already spoken to the tenant to try to resolve. However they will ask the Tenant for a fee of £20.00 and if Tenant says no that's end of that, if Tenant agrees that's fine because he knows he's going to get a Bargain its the LL that takes the hit, the fee for this is £150.00 + vat for the one hour session max it would appear to meet Tenant & LL, at the end you'll get a piece of paper to this affect to add to you Court Bundle, you must also help the Tenant to get Benefit it a requirement to help their finances but I don't know where to start with this as I never drew any Benefit ever so not capable of doing it, is this another LL requirement to be able to apply for Benefit. Incidentally I understand the Deposit Resolution process has already had 20'000 take part in the Scheme rising rapidly, there you go £150.00 x 20'000 = £3'000'000. plus a bit for Government / 20% vat £600'000. = £3.6m extra of LL's money bites the dust. Add that to Deposits Schemes in a similar vain, ( they are all having a Laugh at our expense).

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    So how much will Inventory Clerks charge for this additional service and what of their liabilities if they get it wrong? In my 37 year experience and 21 years running my own Inventory business, I would say about 45% of tenants do not attend their check ins, collecting their keys from the agent. Lyons is completely wrong the last place the checks should be carried out is at the property. What happens when the clerk finds the tenants do not match the documentation, how is the clerk going to remove the tenant? As tedious as these checks are it is the responsibility of the landlord or managing agent to process the paperwork before a tenant gets anywhere near the keys, Clerks have a hard enough time as it is dealing with awkward tenants as it is.

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