Right to Rent / Visa Query

Landlord Discussion Legal
1

I am currently advertising 12 month fixed tenancy for my property starting in October '23.
One prospective tenant is non-UK/EU national with right to rent until August '24, would pass referencing with his income alone. I would need to do follow up check of R2R in August '24 of course to take through to October '24. His wife is awaiting visa application process & permit before she can move to UK but this is delayed as he has said he needs to find a UK residential address first - so he is keen to rent as soon as possible to start this process and for his wife&baby to then join him in the UK.

My concern is I will want both him and his wife to obviously be named in the contract if they are both going to be living here eventually, but would want to complete right to rent check on his wife prior to signing the contract… which I wont be able to do.

Is it best to therefore go with 6 months fixed just with first tenant named in the contract and then complete right to rent check on his wife once she is over in UK - and then potentially sign another contract with them both named after that?
Or will she need to be named in the contract in order for her visa application to be processed initially? Just not sure how I can then do the right to rent check before signing the contract…

Any advice welcome!!
Thanks very much

2

Although you would ideally have both parties named as tenants, it does mean having to give a brand new tenancy when she arrives, which is a lot of admin work and not really in a landlord’s interest. Ive had this situation several times and have usually just named the spouse as a permitted occupier on the contract and left it at that.

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3

The R2R rules are that you can rent for 12 months starting the date of contract even if that exceeds the period left on their visa. I know it sounds strange but that’s what it says on the relevant website, which I linked to somewhere else. So if you have someone starting renting 1 September then as long as their visa expires after that date, even say 30 September, then you can rent to them for 12 months before having to check R2R again. Of course you should double check this! It is a bit scary because it also says you can go to jail for not following the rules…

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