Rights and responsibilities of landlords
If you rent your property out to tenants you have certain rights and responsibilities. Find out more about:
- your rights and responsibilities (Gov.UK)
- deposit protection schemes (Gov.UK)
- health and safety standards
- rules for evicting tenants (Gov.UK)
- how to pay tax on rental income (Gov.UK)
- licences for houses in multiple occupation (HMOs)
If you're using a letting agent or managing agent make sure it belongs to a redress scheme (Shelter).
There is also a range of information about renting from a private landlord on the Citizen's Advice Bureau website.
Eviction when a tenant asks for repairs
As a responsible landlord you shouldn't use section 21 eviction notices to evict tenants if they report disrepair or poor conditions to you.
This is called retaliatory eviction (Shelter website), and there are specific steps you must take to avoid this:
- the tenant must report any disrepair or poor condition in writing to the landlord
- the landlord must respond within 14 days of receiving the complaint.
If the landlord doesn't reply, the reply is inadequate, or they respond by issuing a section 21 eviction notice, the tenant can ask us to step in and carry out an inspection to verify the need for a repair.
Landlord insurance
You may also want to consider a landlord insurance policy. This usually consists of the same type of cover as home insurance, but with some extras that are specifically relevant for landlords. This can include loss of earnings cover if the property becomes uninhabitable, and liability cover if someone injures themselves on your property.
How we can help
There are a number of ways we can help landlords, including finding tenants, managing your property, or providing grants for home improvements.