An Insurance firm's research has found out that many landlords are exposing themselves to unnecessary risks of "inheriting" bad tenants, by not bothering to carry out proper assessments on prospective clients.

Their survey comes up with some shocking results, such as  nearly 33% of tenants polled said that they had broken the law regarding their tenancy agreement and a further 60% had not complied with their rental terms.

Just over a quarter of tenants admitted to paying their rent later than agreed and that 10% owned up to leaving their rented homes so that they could get away with non-payment of rent.

 

The Insurance firm has estimated that the number of tenants paying their rent late across the UK could be in the region of over 2 million.

Additionally 8%, in what is becoming an increasing trend, have sub-let the property without  letting their landlord know, 15% admitted to causing their neighbours to complain about excessive noise and nearly a fifth have kept pets in the home without any agreement from their landlord.

Recent legislation has now made landlords responsible if their tenants are using their "homes" for cannabis farms or any other form of drug dealing, it is solely down to them to be aware of these types of criminal activities. The research claims that just under one in ten tenants are brazenly admitting to committing crimes in their rented homes. 10% have owned up to police visiting their accommodation.

As reported the new Immigration Bill comes into effect in September and failing to comply with this means that landlords could face up to fine of £3,000, if they fail to carry out the required checks. Before the soon to be imposed stricter regime, historically many landlords have not carried out sufficient checks on their new tenants, with 38% not bothering to go through any checking procedure.

No more than 5% of landlords polled had carried out any criminal records checks and nearly a third had not even visited their rental property during a tenancy.

Darrell Sansom, managing director of the Insurance company said: “During the recession, we saw a significant increase in the number of accidental landlords – people who never expected to rent out their property, but couldn’t sell a former home or needed the additional income. With a booming rental market, they aren’t going anywhere,

“When you first start renting out property, you may not realise all the legal implications and duties involved. Last year, for instance, we found that a third of these landlords are, often inadvertently, breaking laws on safety checks, and a quarter have the wrong or no insurance.

“In addition, landlords are under more scrutiny and subject to heavier legal penalties than ever before. HMRC launched a crackdown on landlords whose tax affairs aren’t in order this March, and May’s Immigration Bill introduced fines for landlords who fail to check a tenant’s right to be in the country.

“While legislation toughens, we need to make sure that enough is being done to inform and educate landlords too. Certainly, our experience is that many new landlords aren’t wilfully failing in their duties, they simply aren’t aware of all their obligations and commitments.”