Guide to renting to international students

The student market offers consistent demand each year, which means that renting to students can be highly lucrative for property managers. 

As international students make up a significant proportion of those studying in the UK, marketing to this audience can help maximise your yields. However, if you’re looking to rent to international students, it’s important that you understand their tenant expectations, your responsibilities as a property manager, and how to remain compliant. 

We break down everything you need to know.

Right to Rent checks 

When renting to international students, you will need to check that they have the Right to Rent, as you would with all your other tenants. This shouldn’t be too different from checking that a domestic student has the right to rent in the UK, as international students who have been accepted into a UK university for full-time study will be able to pass the relevant checks. 

What is a Right to Rent check?

Right to Rent checks verify that your prospective tenants have the legal right to rent in the UK and aren’t living in the country illegally. No matter whether you are letting your property out to students or residential tenants and whether those tenants are domestic or international, it is your legal responsibility to verify that all tenants aged over 18 have the right to rent in the UK.

How to carry out a Right to Rent check

To carry out a manual Right to Rent check, you should ask for original documents proving that the tenant is allowed to live in the UK. Once you have ensured these are genuine, you should make a copy of each document and keep it for your records. 

What if the tenant can’t provide the right documents?

There are two ways to go about carrying out a Right to Rent check. The first is a manual check, where you verify the tenant’s original documents, as outlined above. If a tenant can’t provide the correct documents, you can use the Home Office’s online checking service. 

You can use the Home Office online checking service if your tenant:

• Is a non-EEA national with a current biometric resident permit or card 
• Is an EEA national or the family member of an EEA national with status granted under the EU Settlement Scheme 
• Has status under the points-based immigration system

To do this form of check, tenants must view their own status and provide you with their share code. International students can apply for a share code on the gov.uk website. To apply for this code, they need to provide their date of birth and one of the following documents:

• Biometric residence permit
• Biometric residence card
• Passport or national identity card

You can then submit the share code and tenant’s date of birth to see their Right to Rent profile page and check their status. You must then verify that the image in their profile is actually them, either by meeting them in person or via video link. 

What if the student has a time-limited right to rent?

Some international students only have the right to rent in the UK for a limited period, for instance for as long as their course is running. In this case, you must not conduct the Right to Rent check sooner than 28 days before the tenancy starts. 

When you use Concurrent for Right to Rent checks, our automated Right to Rent checks automatically commence 28 days before the tenancy begins or immediately after the contract is signed if there are less than 28 days before the tenancy start date so you always remain fully compliant.

After the time-limited date has passed, you must re-check that your tenant still has the right to rent in the UK. 

What happens if you don’t comply?

If you fail to carry out necessary Right to Rent checks on any tenant, international or domestic, it could cause you to be fined up to £3,000 per tenant. You could also be prosecuted for knowingly letting a property to an illegal immigrant and potentially face prison time. 

How to protect your income when renting to international students

It is typically quite difficult to reference student tenants using the standard processes as they usually do not have a rental or employment history. This is particularly true for international students as they may have just moved to the UK. 

However, this doesn’t mean that international students won’t make good tenants. There are a few different ways to protect your income.

Ask for a guarantor

When renting to domestic students, the most common thing to do would be to ask them to provide a UK-based guarantor: typically a parent or guardian. The guarantor will then be referenced and will be responsible for paying the rent if the tenant fails to do so. 

Not all international students can provide a UK-based guarantor which creates complications as it is more difficult to reference someone who does not live in the country. It is also harder to chase them for unpaid rent if that situation arises. 

However, it’s always worth asking your tenant before you rule this option out. They may have family or another party who could act as a guarantor for them in the UK. If you do have an international tenant who is able to provide a UK-based guarantor, then this could be the easiest option to protect your income. 

Ask for upfront payment 

If an international student cannot provide a UK-based guarantor, many property managers will ask them for rent payment upfront. This could be the entire rental sum for the year or a smaller part of it, for instance, six months’ rent. This protects you against falling into rent arrears. 

Use a guarantor waiver 

If neither of these options is right for you, you could consider offering your tenants a guarantor waiver. Tenants pay a slightly higher rental price each month and, in exchange, you waive the need for a guarantor. This provides you with an additional level of protection while still allowing you to let to international tenants who cannot provide an appropriate guarantor. 

Concurrent has an integrated guarantor service, established through our partnership with Leap. With Concurrent, you can offer guarantor waivers within the contract signing flow. As tenants can pay the guarantor waiver fee as part of their rent instalments, the whole process is simple and seamless. International students can proceed with renting without a guarantor and you can feel secure and covered financially. 

What do international students expect from housing?

Sometimes international students have slightly different requirements and expectations from their student accommodation. If you want to appeal to this market, it’s important to take their needs and desires into account when marketing your properties.

There are a few steps you can consider to make your property more attractive to international students.

Quality of accommodation

In general, international students who come to the UK to study tend to have more expendable income than their UK counterparts. They tend to want to pay more for their accommodation, in return for a higher standard of living. If you’re looking to attract international students, ensuring that your property appears high-quality and has modern furnishings and amenities will help a lot.

Bills included

International students may have just moved to the UK for the first time, and therefore might not have an existing credit rating and might not understand how organising utility bills works here. Offering a bills-included option might make things simpler and easier for them, and thereby make your listing more appealing. 

In a bills-inclusive rental option, the property manager is responsible for organising the utilities, including gas, electricity, water, Wi-Fi, and any other key accounts you might like to include. In exchange, you can request a higher inclusive rental fee from tenants.

If this doesn’t feel quite right, there are other options to make it easier for international students. With Concurrent, you can refer all tenants to our utility partners, The Student Energy Group and Bunch, within the signing flow. Tenants can choose their bills package with one of our providers while signing their contract. You will even receive referral commission for doing this. 

Furnished accommodation

As international students are coming from abroad, they will not be able to bring too much with them. It’s important that you at least offer them furnished accommodation and equip the property with key appliances. If you want to make your property more attractive, you could offer more than the general basics. 

Streamline Right to Rent checks with Concurrent

Renting to international students is easy as long as you understand your responsibilities as a property manager.

Looking to speed up and streamline your operations? Automate Right to Rent checks with Concurrent and benefit from government-certified identity document verification technologies which enhance the efficiency of your processes while ensuring you remain fully compliant. 

Want to find out more? Book a demo today.