The Legal Landscape of Rental Properties: Compliance and Risk Mitigation for Landlords

Being a landlord comes with several legal responsibilities to which you must adhere to protect your business and your reputation. Ensuring compliance is not only a legal responsibility but will also help you better attract tenants.

The Government’s How to Let guide is a useful overview of your responsibilities as a private rental landlord letting to tenants on an assured shorthold tenancy. A copy of the sister publication How to Rent must be provided to tenants at the start of a tenancy since it provides a clear outline of who’s responsible for what.

As a landlord your key legal responsibilities focus on two main areas; ensuring you provide a property that is safe and fit for purpose throughout the term of the tenancy, and ensuring you look after your tenants’ deposits and don’t charge unfair fees in relation to a tenancy.

Fit For Human Habitation

You must ensure the property you are letting is fit for human habitation and free from hazards. This includes various health and safety issues that should be monitored and updated throughout the tenancy period. You will also need to keep on top of standard maintenance to ensure the property remains in a good state of repair.

Gas safety checks must be carried out annually, with a copy of the certificate given to the tenant at the start of the tenancy. The electrical installations in the property must also be inspected at the start of the tenancy and a report provided and then updated at least every five years.

Another health and safety must is the installation of smoke and carbon monoxide alarms where applicable. These should also be regularly tested to ensure they are still working and don’t need new batteries or replacing, for example.

As part of the human habitation terms an energy performance certificate must also be given to tenants, with rented homes required to meet a rating of E or above unless they have a valid exemption.

Abiding By The Tenant Fees Act 2019 And Protecting Deposits

Handling the financials of your business correctly is also an essential part of being a compliant landlord. The Tenant Fees Act 2019 bans the charging of unfair fees to tenants in connection with their tenancy, as well as capping tenancy and holding deposits. You must also protect tenancy deposits in a government-approved scheme.

Ensuring Tenants Have The Right To Rent

It’s also your responsibility as a landlord to ensure your prospective tenant has the right to rent under section 22 of the Immigration Act 2014. That means ensuring that they are present lawfully in the UK in accordance with immigration law.

Providing Contact Details

Good communication between yourself as landlord and your tenant is also essential and that starts with your tenant easily being able to get hold of you. Under section 48 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 you must provide your tenant with a name and address where they can serve you any notices. Rent will not be ‘lawfully due’ until you have done so. You also need to provide contact details that include a telephone number for yourself or your agent that your tenants can use in an emergency.

We Can Help

At Progressive Lets we are experts in the rental market in the Peterborough area and help landlords find and manage properties within a 50-mile radius. We work with landlords of all sizes, including those who are just starting out and who need advice on compliance issues or who want us to manage properties on their behalf. Get in touch to find out more.