ARLA boss David Cox said that the current Right to Rent trial in the West Midlands has proved more positive for agents than might have been thought.

He said: “Agents in the area say that it has actually made the checking process easier because instead of asking tenants if they can see documentation and risking an angry applicant, they are now able to explain to tenants that they have a legal duty to see it.”

Cox said he does have one significant concern about the extension of Right to Rent across England on February 1.

“At the moment, the Home Office’s Right to Rent checking service is working well. The average turnaround time is six hours, well ahead of the two days maximum, and the quickest turnaround we have seen is 20 minutes.

“But will it have the capacity when it is suddenly scaled up from a relatively small to the whole of England?”

Commercial suppliers are also gearing up for the February 1 launch across the whole of England.

Joanna Dickens, of Let Alliance, said her firm offered a free service to agents in the pilot area and took their feedback into account when developing the system.

Since December 2014, Let Alliance has completed 844 global references.

Global references cost an extra £10 on top of the normal references.

The service checks the validity of documentation and confirms either Continuous Right to Rent, Time limited Right to Rent, or no Right to Rent (decline).

If an applicant has time limited right to rent, the agent is reminded when this is coming towards the end so that the agent can seek proof of continued right to rent, or notify the Home Office.

Let Alliance says it will also pay any fine which an agent becomes liable for, as a result of a tenant who has passed the global reference, subsequently being found not to have the right to rent.

Another firm, UKtenantdata has developed an app allowing agents to scan and validate documentation at the point of viewing.

The system also captures visa and biometric residency permit expiry dates  and flags the expiry dates well in advance, to cut down on the risk of non-compliance.