Can Landlords Do Tenant Referencing Themselves? A Guide

Quick answer

Yes. No law says a landlord must hand tenant reference checks to an agent. The one part you can't wing is right to rent: every adult occupier in England has to be checked before the tenancy starts, and a slip can mean a fine of up to £10,000 per occupier. Everything else in tenant referencing (identity, income, credit, past landlords) is your own risk management, and it's what protects your rent.

Is tenant referencing a legal duty?

Only one slice of it is. Tenant referencing is the label for everything you check before giving someone the keys: who they are, whether they can afford the rent, and how they treated their last home. The law makes you do exactly one of those things, the right to rent check. The rest is judgement.

People blur the two, and it costs them. The Home Office's 1 October 2026 guidance says a check run for some other reason, such as identity verification or a referencing report, only protects you if it followed the Home Office's own steps. A tidy report from a referencing firm doesn't cover you by itself.

Right to rent checks: the part you can't skip

Every adult who'll make the property their home, even if it's their main one rather than their only one, needs checking before the tenancy begins. British citizens too. Being left off the tenancy agreement doesn't matter either, so the partner who isn't on the contract still gets checked.

There are three routes:

Manual check. Look at original documents with the holder in front of you, in person or on a live video call. Photocopies and scans don't count. Copy the documents, write the date on the copy, and store it.

Home Office online check. The tenant generates a share code on GOV.UK. It starts with an R and lasts 90 days. You enter it with their date of birth on the official checking service, confirm the photo matches the person, and save the profile page. Anyone who holds only an eVisa has to be checked this way.

A registered digital identity provider. Since 1 October 2026 the provider must be on the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes register.

Timing catches people out. If the tenant has an unlimited right to rent, you can check any time before the agreement is signed. If it's time-limited, the check has to fall no earlier than 28 days before signing, and you'll need a follow-up before the excuse runs out. Here's a made-up example: signing is on 20 November, so a check on 22 October is too early and one on 23 October works.

Keep every record for the length of the tenancy plus at least a year after it ends, then destroy it securely. Do all of that properly and you hold a statutory excuse, which is a defence against a civil penalty. Get it wrong and the Home Office can fine you up to £10,000 per occupier for a first breach and £20,000 for a repeat. Knowingly renting to someone who's disqualified brings criminal sanctions as well.

One more rule: run the same process on every applicant. Checking only the people you assume are migrants breaks the Equality Act, and compensation for discrimination has no upper limit.

What full tenant reference checks cover

Beyond right to rent, tenant reference checks answer three questions. Is this person who they say they are? Can they pay this rent? Did they pay, and behave, last time? Here's how each looks when you do it yourself.

Check	What DIY involves	Where it goes wrong
Right to rent	Share code or original documents, dated copies kept	Checking too early for a time-limited tenant; missing the follow-up date
Identity	Photo ID matched to the person, proof of address	Accepting scans when you need originals
Income and employment	Payslips, contract, employer reference, bank statements	Paperwork that looks right but nobody has verified with the employer
Credit history	A search through a paid provider	The cost lands on you, not the applicant
Previous landlord	Email or phone the current and the one before	A current landlord who wants the tenant gone may praise anyone
Guarantor	The same checks as the tenant	Treating the guarantor as a formality

None of this is hard on its own. The work is doing all of it, on every adult, the same way every time, and holding the paperwork for years.

What changed in 2026

The first phase of the Renters' Rights Act began on 1 May 2026. Three changes touch referencing directly: rent bidding is banned, rent in advance is capped at one month, and refusing someone for having children or receiving benefits is unlawful. A blanket "no benefits" screen is out. Judge each household against the actual rent instead.

Section 21 evictions ended the same day. My view: that makes referencing worth more, not less, because a tenant you shouldn't have taken is now harder to move on. Spend the extra few days.

There's a paperwork deadline coming too. Landlords in the East of England, which includes St Albans and the rest of Hertfordshire, register between 15 January and 14 April 2027, at £65 per property per year, and we've set out the steps in our post on the RRA database.

Who pays for referencing? Not the applicant

Under the Tenant Fees Act 2019 you can't charge a tenant for referencing, credit checks, or admin. A tenant can be asked for rent, a refundable holding deposit capped at one week's rent, and a short list of other payments, all listed in the GOV.UK fees guidance. A holding deposit also starts a clock: you generally have 15 days to decide, so slow referencing costs you the applicant.

The bill for checks is yours, whether it's a provider's fee or your own evenings.

DIY or agent? How I'd call it

Do it yourself if you have one property, one or two applicants with simple status (a UK passport, say), and the patience to keep tidy records. It's a fair way to learn what your agent actually does.

Hand it over if you're letting to sharers, since each adult needs the full process, or if anyone has time-limited status, an eVisa, or is overseas when you agree terms. Also hand it over if you can't turn checks around inside the holding deposit window.

If you do appoint an agent, get it in writing. If the agent accepts the job in a written agreement, the civil penalty risk moves to them, and that agreement should say whether follow-up checks are included. I'd still ask any agent, us included, who runs the right to rent check and which provider they use.

At Gem Lettings, our Tenant Find service costs 6% + VAT of 12 months' gross rent (as of October 2026) and includes referencing, sanction checks and ID checks. The details are on our landlord services page, and applicants can see what we'll ask of them on our tenant information page.

Frequently asked questions

Can I charge my tenant for tenant reference checks?

No. Referencing and credit check fees are banned for new tenancies under the Tenant Fees Act 2019. You can take a refundable holding deposit of up to one week's rent, and nothing else upfront besides rent and the security deposit.

How long do I keep right to rent records?

For the whole tenancy and at least one year after it ends. Then destroy them securely. Keep the dated copies somewhere you can find them fast, because the Home Office may ask for proof of your check.

Do I need to check a British citizen?

Yes. The duty covers every adult occupier, whatever their nationality. A British passport is simply the easiest document to check.

What if the tenant is abroad when we agree the tenancy?

You can agree terms in principle, but the right to rent check still has to happen before they move in. A live video call can do the checking if you hold the original documents or the share code.

Does a referencing company's report count as a right to rent check?

Only if the check was done by a registered digital identity provider following the Home Office rules. The company has to name which provider it used. If it doesn't, run the check yourself.

Your next step before the next viewing

Open the Home Office guide and read the section on your likely applicant's documents. If the list looks heavier than you want to carry, ask for a free valuation or get in touch and we'll talk through how we handle tenant referencing for St Albans landlords.

Can You Do Tenant Reference Checks Yourself? A Landlord's Guide to Tenant Referencing