TL;DR
Right to Rent checks landlord obligations were introduced under the Immigration Act 2014 and tightened by the 2024 penalty uplift. Landlords letting residential property in England must verify every adult occupier has the legal right to rent before the tenancy starts, using one of three approved methods: manual document check, Identity Service Provider (IDSP) digital check, or Home Office online check (share code). Penalties rose to up to £10,000 per tenant first breach and £20,000 per tenant repeat breach under the 2024 regime. The Right to Rent regime applies in England only — Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are out of scope. This guide covers the three methods, share code mechanics, follow-up dates, and the record-keeping that survives a Home Office audit.
What Right to Rent checks landlord rules require
The Right to Rent regime sits under the Immigration Act 2014, which made it a civil and (since 2016) potentially criminal offence to let residential property to someone who doesn’t have the right to rent in the UK. The basic obligation is straightforward: before a tenancy begins, the landlord — or a person acting on the landlord’s behalf — must verify the immigration status of every prospective adult occupier aged 18 or over.
Right to Rent checks landlord obligations apply in England only. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have not adopted equivalent regimes. A London-based portfolio landlord with properties in all four nations only has to run checks on the English properties — but in practice, given how concentrated the rental market is in England, this distinction rarely changes operational workflow.
The check applies to all adult occupiers, not just the named tenant. A couple where only one partner signs the tenancy still need both parties checked. Adult children, lodgers, and any other adult resident — whoever the landlord knows or reasonably ought to know is occupying — must be checked. The threshold is 18 years or older; under-18s are out of scope of the check itself, though their status may matter at the point they turn 18 during the tenancy.
Failure to carry out a valid check, or letting to someone the landlord knows or has reasonable cause to believe doesn’t have the right to rent, exposes the landlord to civil penalties — and, in aggravated cases, criminal prosecution with up to 5 years’ imprisonment. The 2024 penalty uplift roughly tripled the civil amounts.
The three approved check methods
There are three valid methods for completing right to rent checks landlord obligations, and each route through right to rent checks landlord compliance produces the same statutory excuse when documented correctly. Each one produces a “statutory excuse” — the legal defence a landlord relies on if the Home Office later finds the tenant didn’t have the right to rent. The check method does not need to be the same across all occupiers; mixed methods within one household are permitted as long as each individual check is properly completed.
Method 1 — Manual document check. The landlord physically inspects original documents from the prescribed lists, takes a clear copy, and dates the copy. This method is available for British and Irish citizens (who can use passports, driving licences, or other List A documents) and for some non-British nationals holding physical biometric residence permits. It is the oldest of the three methods and remains valid.
Method 2 — Identity Service Provider (IDSP) digital check. A certified IDSP firm verifies the prospective tenant’s identity using biometric and document data, then issues a digital check report to the landlord. This method covers British and Irish citizens specifically — non-British, non-Irish nationals must use Method 3. Approved IDSP firms are listed on gov.uk; the check typically costs £15-£40 per applicant.
Method 3 — Home Office online check (share code). The prospective tenant generates a 9-character alphanumeric share code from their online Home Office account, which starts with the letter “R” for Right to Rent (vs “W” for Right to Work — different code, different system). The landlord enters the share code and the tenant’s date of birth on the Home Office check service, retrieves the result, and saves a dated screenshot. Share codes are valid for 90 days from generation; an expired code requires a new one.
All three methods produce a valid statutory excuse if properly documented. Mixed methods within one household are permitted; the choice is operational, not legal.
Share codes: the most common method in practice
For most London landlords letting to international tenants, the share code is the dominant right to rent checks landlord method in practice. Across the right to rent checks landlord workflow, the share code accounts for the majority of completed checks in central London portfolios. Three details about share codes recur in landlord errors.
First, share codes are not the same as Right to Work share codes. Right to Rent share codes start with the letter “R”. Right to Work share codes start with the letter “W”. Tenants who generate the wrong code — typically because they’re more familiar with the Right to Work process from employment — will produce a 9-character code that won’t validate on the Right to Rent service. The landlord must ask for the correct code.
Second, share codes expire 90 days after generation, not 90 days after first use. A prospective tenant who generates a code in January and presents it to a landlord in April has produced an expired code. The Home Office check service rejects expired codes outright, and the landlord can ask for a fresh one — there’s no penalty to the tenant for generating multiple codes in a single application cycle.
Third, the screenshot is the evidence that anchors right to rent checks landlord audit defence. The Home Office online service displays the check result on screen at the time the landlord runs the check. The landlord must save a clear dated screenshot showing the tenant’s name, photograph, status, and any expiry date. Verbal confirmation, or recording only that “the check passed”, will not survive a Home Office audit. Share code checks must also be carried out in the prospective tenant’s virtual presence — typically a video call where the landlord sees the tenant entering their date of birth on-screen.
Follow-up checks for time-limited status
For right to rent checks landlord follow-up obligations, a check completed at tenancy start produces a statutory excuse — but only until the tenant’s leave to remain expires. For tenants with time-limited status (most non-British, non-Irish nationals), the landlord must complete a follow-up check before the expiry date to maintain the statutory excuse.
The follow-up rules:
- Time-limited status (visa with an expiry date): follow-up check on or before the expiry date
- Indefinite leave to remain (ILR / settled status): no follow-up check required
- British or Irish citizenship: no follow-up check required
- Outcome pending Home Office decision: check valid for 6 months from the Home Office acknowledgement; follow-up check before the 6-month window expires
Failing to complete a follow-up check on time invalidates the original statutory excuse — even if the tenant subsequently turns out to have valid leave. The landlord’s protection lapses at the expiry of the original check, not at the expiry of the tenant’s leave. In practice, the follow-up check is the obligation most often missed.
If the follow-up check shows the tenant still has the right to rent, the cycle resets — a new statutory excuse runs to the next expiry date. If the follow-up check shows the tenant no longer has the right to rent (e.g., the visa wasn’t renewed), the landlord has a 28-day window to report the position to the Home Office. Reporting within that window maintains the statutory excuse against any civil penalty even though the landlord is now knowingly housing someone without the right to rent during the wind-down period. The 28-day report is the final right to rent checks landlord obligation in that statutory excuse cycle.
Penalties: the 2024 uplift and what triggers each band
The Immigration Act 2014 set the original civil penalty at £80 per lodger and £1,000 per tenant. The 2024 uplift to right to rent checks landlord penalties, in force since 13 February 2024, raised the right to rent checks landlord civil penalty bands substantially:
| Breach type | Tenant (residential tenancy) | Lodger (excluded occupier) |
|---|---|---|
| First breach | Up to £5,000 | Up to £5,000 |
| First breach — corporate landlord | Up to £10,000 | Up to £10,000 |
| Repeat breach | Up to £10,000 | Up to £10,000 |
| Repeat breach — corporate landlord | Up to £20,000 | Up to £20,000 |
Right to Rent checks landlord penalties run per tenant or lodger, not per breach event. A landlord letting a 3-bedroom HMO to four adults without valid checks could face up to £20,000 in a first-breach scenario (£5,000 × 4) or up to £80,000 on a repeat-breach corporate basis (£20,000 × 4).
The Home Office applies the bands by reference to the landlord’s history; “repeat” means a previous penalty within 3 years.
In addition to civil penalties, the criminal offence under Section 39 of the Immigration Act 2016 — knowingly letting to someone without the right to rent, or having reasonable cause to believe so — carries up to 5 years’ imprisonment plus an unlimited fine.
Criminal prosecutions are rare and reserved for aggravated cases (deliberate, systematic, or large-scale), but they exist as the backstop for right to rent checks landlord enforcement.
A discrimination angle to flag: case law has confirmed that Right to Rent checks must be applied uniformly to all prospective tenants. A landlord who runs checks only on prospective tenants with foreign-sounding names or non-British accents may face a discrimination claim under the Equality Act 2010 even where the underlying Right to Rent checks themselves were properly conducted. The safe approach is to run the same check process for every prospective adult occupier without exception.
Record-keeping: what survives a Home Office audit
For right to rent checks landlord record-keeping, the statutory excuse depends not just on running the check but on keeping the evidence for the duration required. The headline rule:
Keep the check records for the duration of the tenancy, plus 1 year after the tenancy ends.
What counts as “records”:
- For manual checks: a clear photocopy of the original document(s), dated and signed by the landlord, plus a record of which prescribed list the document was relied on under
- For IDSP checks: the IDSP-issued report PDF and any associated correspondence
- For share code checks: a screenshot of the Home Office check service result page showing the tenant’s name, photograph, status, and any expiry date, dated at the time of capture
- Across all methods: a dated cover note recording who carried out the check, on what date, and by what method
Digital storage is acceptable for right to rent checks landlord records as long as the files are retrievable and legible. A folder per property, with subfolders per tenancy and per occupier, is the standard portfolio-landlord approach. The 1-year-post-tenancy retention catches landlords who clear records the day a tenancy ends — “we don’t keep them past the tenancy” is not a defence against a Home Office audit triggered within 12 months of tenancy end. Treat right to rent checks landlord records as part of the wider tenancy file rather than disposable paperwork. For full guidance on retention and document standards, see the Landlord’s Guide to Right to Rent checks.
Common errors that invalidate the statutory excuse
Five recurring errors invalidate what would otherwise be valid right to rent checks landlord protections, and each is worth flagging on the operational checklist:
- Missing check at tenancy start. No check, no statutory excuse. A check completed two months after the tenancy starts does not retrospectively cover the gap.
- Wrong share code (R vs W confusion). Right to Rent share codes start with “R”. A “W” code is Right to Work and won’t validate.
- Expired share code. Codes are valid 90 days from generation. An expired code requires a fresh one before the check can proceed.
- Missed follow-up check. For tenants with time-limited status, the original check produces a statutory excuse only until the expiry date. Missing the follow-up invalidates the protection going forward, even if the tenant in fact retained valid leave.
- Inadequate documentation. Screenshots without dates, photocopies that don’t clearly show the document holder, or records of “the check passed” without retained evidence. The standard is what an auditor would accept; verbal records do not meet it.
The check is the foundation of the tenancy onboarding process, and it pairs with the tenant referencing process (which covers credit, income, and previous landlord references rather than immigration status), the inventory check-in report, and the wider London landlord compliance guide. Together with deposit protection, gas safety, EICR, and EPC obligations, Right to Rent forms the operational core of letting a residential property legally in England.
FAQ
Who has to carry out Right to Rent checks?
Right to rent checks landlord obligations apply to anyone letting residential property in England — private landlords, letting agents (where the landlord delegates the check), and licensors of accommodation in some lodger arrangements. The Right to Rent regime does not apply in Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland.
Do I have to check every occupier or just the named tenant?
Every adult occupier aged 18 or over, whether they’re on the tenancy agreement or not. Adult children, partners, and lodgers must all be checked. Under-18s are out of scope at the time of the original check but become checkable if they continue to live in the property after their 18th birthday during the tenancy.
What are the three approved check methods?
Manual document inspection (for British/Irish nationals and biometric residence permit holders); Identity Service Provider digital check (for British and Irish nationals via certified IDSP firms); and Home Office online share code check (for non-British, non-Irish nationals or as a digital alternative for British/Irish nationals).
What is a share code and how long does it last?
A share code is a 9-character alphanumeric code the tenant generates from their online Home Office account, starting with the letter “R” for Right to Rent. Codes are valid for 90 days from generation. The landlord enters the code plus the tenant’s date of birth on the Home Office check service and saves a dated screenshot of the result.
What’s the difference between a Right to Rent and a Right to Work share code?
The opening letter. Right to Rent codes start with “R”; Right to Work codes start with “W”. They’re generated through similar Home Office accounts but produce different check results — a Right to Work code won’t validate on the Right to Rent service.
How much is the penalty for failing to check?
Right to rent checks landlord penalties are up to £5,000 per tenant for a first breach by an individual landlord, rising to £20,000 per tenant for a repeat breach by a corporate landlord. Penalties apply per tenant or lodger, not per breach event. The criminal offence for knowingly letting to someone without the right to rent carries up to 5 years’ imprisonment plus an unlimited fine.
Do I need to repeat the check during a tenancy?
Only for tenants with time-limited immigration status. A follow-up check must be completed on or before the expiry date shown in the original check. British and Irish citizens, and those with indefinite leave to remain, do not require follow-up checks.
By Click Inventories Team
