Landlord responsibilities
There are legal requirements and checks that you need to meet before you rent out your property. There are also things you must do for every tenant that rents from you.
Landlords must:
- protect all tenant deposits in a Tenancy Deposit Protection Scheme
- give your tenants out-of-hours contact numbers in case of emergency
- Make sure your home is safe and fitted with smoke alarms
- Regularly inspect your home, to ensure things are in good repair
- give tenants a general contact number to report any maintenance issues
- make an Energy Performance Certificate available to all potential tenants
- have a HMO licence to rent out a property to five or more tenants who form two or more households and use shared facilities such as bathrooms and kitchens
Before the tenancy starts
All landlords renting a property must do a ‘Right to Rent’ check and it has to include anyone in the household who is 18 or over.
If a landlord uses a letting agent you can usually ask them to do this.
This check only applies to landlords and their tenants, so if the tenant decides to rent part of their home to someone else then it is their responsibility to do the check.
GOV.UK information on how to complete a right to rent check
GOV.UK guidance on the requirements of the right to rent
Landlords can be fined and even sent to prison if they don’t do these checks.