Rent with no income but large savings?
Hi, I understand the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 outlaws rent in advance?
I know of a tenant who is cash-rich – lots of investments and savings – and who has given up paid work. He wishes to change rental properties and is concerned that the above change could mean he wouldn’t now be acceptable to a new Landlord, at least not without a guarantor. Ie, they will expect evidence of ‘income’, and cannot now accept a multi-month payment in advance (which he’d otherwise be happy to do).
Is this the case? What would LL’s on here do to surmount this?
To be clear, this fellow could buy a property outright with just his savings, and could draw on a number of investments to cover his rental outlay, but chooses not to buy as he expects there will be a fair chance he’ll move abroad within 5 years, and would much prefer to rent until then.
Thank you
Tom
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Member Since December 2025 - Comments: 31
2:55 PM, 22nd December 2025, About 4 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Graham Bowcock at 22/12/2025 – 13:03
Graham is right. I have submitted a detailed explanation of the legal reason why he is right to 118.
Member Since May 2014 - Comments: 195
3:37 PM, 22nd December 2025, About 4 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Tim Peters at 22/12/2025 – 12:41
Simply get them to put it in writing. If you’re worried
Member Since October 2022 - Comments: 200
9:04 PM, 24th December 2025, About 4 months ago
Reply to the comment left by Tim Peters at 18/12/2025 – 12:40
I’m not a legal expert by any means (although I have family who are), but I would expect it to be highly likely that any such arm’s-length arrangement would be seen as an attempt to evade the law and therefore deemed to be illegal.
Even if it were theoretically legal, a “voluntary” payment could also be very risky as it would be very difficult to prove that the person wanted to make the payment as opposed to being “encouraged” to make it.
Furthermore, there’s nothing to stop a tenant deciding later on to make a claim against you even if they did originally do it voluntarily. So you would have to have watertight records and hope that they were accepted. I’m not sure anybody would want that stress!!
The only safe option would be for the tenant to procure a guarantor service from a third party provider. I believe these already exist and I suspect that there will be a lot more of them once the RRA kicks in properly.
No doubt another supposedly unintended consequence of the RRA despite being very predictable. And, of course, inflating the cost of renting for those on the wrong side of things.