The idea that landlords should be making sure that potential tenants aren’t illegal immigrants was always going to cause controversy.
Critics of the proposal state that landlords and letting agents cannot be expected to investigate the legal status of potential tenants.
Yet I believe that some of the criticism is wide of the mark.
As letting agents, we are supposed to make it as easy and trouble-free as possible for a landlord to rent out their property to tenants. We are given the task of finding tenants who will pay rent on time, won’t wilfully damage the property and its fixtures and fittings, will honour the contract they sign and won’t do anything illegal on the premises.
As part of our duty, therefore, we should be doing all we can to determine the character and suitability of anyone looking to rent a property that we are letting for its owner.
We are bound to carry out due diligence checks on potential tenants because the landlord has hired us to ensure that decent, dependable tenants are in that property for the duration of the contract.
Passports, social security numbers and credit ratings are among the checks we can make to determine a potential tenant’s suitability. Such checks may well throw up questions about a person’s status in the UK.
It isn’t asking much of a letting agent to flag up any such concerns that arise when making such checks; especially if the government could give us a uniform, foolproof procedure to follow to make it as straightforward as possible. In fact, it has to be viewed as part of the service we offer landlords.
The proposal is not asking us to become border police. It is merely asking us to act appropriately when doing our work.
Luke Gidney is director of Let-Leeds
.jpg)
Comments