Self-managing landlords and those operating outside a membership body are less informed by the Right to Rent scheme, government research has found.

The Right to Rent scheme 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. To examine awareness of Right to Rent and engagement with the scheme, the Home Office undertook quantitative and qualitative research with private landlords between September 2019 and October 2021.

The recently published findings show awareness in the private rented sector is strong: the vast majority of private landlords claimed prior awareness of the Right to Rent scheme in January 2021 (79%).

The survey also showed that the just over half (55%) of landlords held a positive view of the Right to Rent policy. However, one in five landlords claimed awareness of discriminatory behaviour towards tenants, and one in 10 attributed discriminatory behaviour to the Right to Rent scheme.

Around two in three landlords (67%) stated that they feel very or quite confident carrying out the verification checks required by the Right to Rent scheme. Just over a half (54%) of private landlord respondents had read one or more of the documents available on GOV.UK and almost three in 10 (28%) had used the government’s online tool.

However, the qualitative research also found self-managing landlords not using an agent for tenant sourcing/screening, those operating outside of a formal membership body or those with smaller letting portfolios tended to have less of an understanding of the Right to Rent scheme’s details. For this cohort, scheme awareness was often created through informal sources, such as word-of-mouth or media broadcasts, and knowledge of their responsibilities/liabilities was incomplete.

Commenting on the findings, Nathan Emerson, CEO of Propertymark, said: “It is clear from this review that self-managing landlords have a knowledge gap and it’s not surprising. Right to Rent has been through many complex changes in the last three years with Covid-19 lockdowns, the end of freedom of movement due to the UK’s exit from the EU and the introduction of the Home Office’s real time digital systems.

“Professional agents, particularly those in membership with a body like Propertymark, taking their compliance responsibilities seriously dedicate time and CPD to ensuring they are fully compliant.”