New study says UK landlords are leaving themselves exposed to tenant wrong doing
UK landlords are leaving themselves exposed to the country’s worst tenants by failing to carry out basic checks, according to new research.
With the rental market’s peak season about to start, insurance giant AXA reveals just how many of the UK’s estimated 8.3 million tenants are behaving badly and how poorly protected landlords really are when the worst happens.
The study shows that almost 60% of tenants admit to breaking the terms of their rental agreement, and a third had broken the law in relation to their rental.
In particular some 26% of tenants pay their rent late and AXA says this is equivalent to 2,158,000 tenants nationwide, and one in 10 tenants admit to having done a moonlight flit to avoid paying the landlord money, equivalent to 830,000 tenants nationwide.
Some 18% have kept pets in the property without the landlord’s permission, 15% have received complaints from neighbours for excessive noise and 8% have sub-let to someone else without the landlord’s permission.
At the most serious end of the scale, 8% of tenants admit to actually committing a crime on the landlord’s premises, and 10% say they’ve had the police called to the property.
While these tenants remain in the minority, landlords do carry a legal responsibility to ensure that their premises are not used for criminal purposes. Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, landlords can face prosecution if a tenant is found to be producing cannabis or banned substances on their property.
In October, the new Immigration Bill is also set to come into force, placing greater responsibilities on landlords to vet their tenants. Under the new law, landlords who fail to check a tenant’s right to be in the country will face a fine of up to £3,000 if the slip up means they have someone on their property who is in the country illegally.
AXA warns that while the responsibilities on landlords to keep their houses in order are getting stricter, many are still failing to carry out any checks on their tenants or even visit their properties at all. The research found that 38% landlords carry out no checks on prospective tenants, and only 5% carry out a criminal record check. Meanwhile, a third of landlords never visit their property during a rental.
And despite many landlords relying on rental income to cover expenses such as mortgage payments and basic living costs, few of them check if their tenants have the means to pay their rent. Just under a third of landlords carry out a credit check, only 27% ask for employer references and just 27% ask for references from previous landlords.
Tenancy agreements are also an important part of the picture, giving the landlord a firm foundation to evict non-paying tenants or claim damages for financial loss caused by the tenant and AXA found that landlords are getting better on this front. This year’s study found that 75% of rentals are now based on a formal agreement, compared to just 52% at the beginning of…