Changes to Right to Rent and Section 8

How Right to Rent and Section 8 will effect landlords of student property

On 1st December the new provisions of the Immigration Act 2016 came into effect, in England. The new legislation sees significant changes to right to rent and section 8, which mean that landlords of student property need to be aware of these changes. We’ve put together a quick guide to explain the changes and what you need to know.

Purple Frog already ensure that all tenants provide the correct information to prove their right to rent in the United Kingdom. Our let-only clients should still check original documents, if they provide keys for the tenants.

What are the new provisions?

The new provisions mean that the Secretary of State will be able to serve a notice to a landlord that lets them know that some or all of the tenants occupying the property do not have a right to rent. Any landlord that receives such a notification is obliged to evict those tenants, within a reasonable time frame.

What is ‘reasonable’?

The Government has given formal guidance as to their definition of ‘reasonable time’. The set period is four weeks. After this, a landlord needs to take formal action and pursue an eviction, if they have not been able to agree with the tenants a time to vacate the property.

If none of the tenants have a right to rent

If a landlord receives notice from the Secretary of State that none of the occupiers have a right to rent, then the Government has provided a prescribed form that will allow the landlord to serve notice. Once this expires, the tenants no longer have a right to be in the property. The landlord can then evict them without having to obtain a court order. The prescribed form of notice can be downloaded here: www.legislation.gov.uk/pdfs/uksi_20161060_en.pdf.

The notice maybe given in the following ways:

• Delivered to the tenants
• Left at the premises
• Sent by post
• In any other prescribed manner

The notice holds the same weight as a High Court order.

If not all tenants have the right to rent

Notices from the Secretary of State that only affect some of the tenants mean that the landlord will still need to go to court for possession. Schedule II of the Housing Act 1988 has been updated to make this possible with Assured and Assured Shorthold Tenancies.

This has been achieved with a new ground in the Immigration Act – 7B. This new ground can be used with an updated Section 8 notice, which also comes into effect on 1st December, and requires a landlord to give no less than two weeks’ notice.

Landlords will need to use the new Section 8 form from 1st December. It will be automatically updated on the Government site, here: www.gov.uk/assured-tenancy-forms#form-3.

Section 8 is the legal notice used to evict tenants during a fixed term tenancy.

As the majority of student tenancies are joint tenancies, rather than making an order of possession, the court will order the tenant’s interest to be transferred so that it only includes the tenants with a right to rent.

The court order won’t create a new tenancy, so the term will still end at the same time. This means that the fixed term won’t be affected. It’s not clear from the legislation what would happen about the total rent due. However, in the event of a tenant being evicted because of right to rent, Purple Frog would work with you to re-let the room, as soon as possible.

Who has the right to rent?

The Government sets out that a person does not have the right to rent if they fulfil one of the following conditions:

• They require leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom, but they do not have it
• Their leave to enter or remain in the UK is subject to a condition preventing them form occupying the property

The changes affect all current tenancies that have been entered into before or after the 1st December commencement date.
A criminal offence

The current penalty for any landlords that allow a tenant who does not have a right to rent to occupy their property is a civil penalty, enforced by way of a fine. However, from 1st December, the new Immigration act makes this a criminal act. The maximum penalty for landlords and agents is five years in prison. Although one would suspect that this steep sentence would be reserved for recidivists who continually flouted the law.

A new section – 33A – means unless a landlord has taken reasonable steps to end the tenancy, they are breaking the law if:

• A property is occupied by an adult who is disqualified by their immigration status from renting
• The landlord knows or has a reasonable cause to believe that one of their tenants is disqualified from renting because of their immigration status

There is more detailed guidance published on the Government website. You can download the PDF  here: www.gov.uk/Residential_tenancy-_Statutory_Guidance_Accessible.pdf

You can read our previous blog on Right to Rent here: www.purplefrogproperty.com/right-to-rent.