Training for Your Rent Smart Wales Licence

Any person who performs lettings or property management work on a ‘domestic tenancy’ must have a licence.

All letting and managing agents who let or manage property subject to a domestic tenancy in Wales must obtain a licence.

All licenses will need to be applied for through Rent Smart Wales and will involve some training which is what we can provide.

Lettings Work

An agent will require a licence if the agent is to carry out any lettings work. This means anything done by any person in response to instructions from:

• a person seeking to find another person wishing to rent a dwelling under a domestic tenancy and, having found such a person, to grant such a tenancy (“a prospective landlord”), or
• a person seeking to find a dwelling to rent under a domestic tenancy and having found such a dwelling, to obtain such a tenancy of it (“a prospective tenant”).

Property Management Work

Further, an agent will need a licence if the agent wishes to carry out property management work. This means doing any of the following things:

• collecting rent;
• being the principal point of contact for the tenant in relation to matters arising under the tenancy;
• making arrangements with a person to carry out repairs or maintenance;
• making arrangements with a tenant or occupier of the dwelling to secure access to the dwelling for any purpose;
• checking the contents or condition of the dwelling, or arranging for them to be checked;
• serving notice to terminate a tenancy.

Please see our agent’s guide to Rent Smart Wales licensing and training.

More FAQs are available on the Rent Smart Wales website here.

All landlords must register but only self-managing landlords require a licence. If a landlord prefers, they can use a licensed agent.

A landlord will need a licence in addition to registration if the landlord is to carry out any one or more lettings activities. Those activities are:

• arranging or conducting viewings with prospective tenants;
• gathering evidence for the purpose of establishing the suitability of prospective tenants (for example, by confirming character references, undertaking credit checks or interviewing a prospective tenant);
• preparing, or arranging the preparation, of a tenancy agreement;
• preparing, or arranging the preparation, of an inventory for the dwelling or schedule of condition for the dwelling.

Further, a landlord will need a licence if the landlord is to carry out any one or more property management activities. Those activities are:

• collecting rent;
• being the principal point of contact for the tenant in relation to matters arising under the tenancy;
• making arrangements with a person to carry out repairs or maintenance;
• making arrangements with a tenant or occupier of the dwelling to secure access to the dwelling for any purpose;
• checking the contents or condition of the dwelling, or arranging for them to be checked;
• serving notice to terminate a tenancy.

As a starting point, all named landlord’s on a tenancy agreement will require a licence because they will be a named contact for the tenancy and may need to serve a notice to terminate the tenancy in the future.

Please see our landlord’s guide to Rent Smart Wales registration, licensing and training.

More FAQs are available on the Rent Smart Wales website here.

Exemptions for agents

If an agent only publishes advertisements or disseminating information providing a means by which:

• a prospective landlord (or the prospective landlord’s agent) or a prospective tenant can, in response to an advertisement or dissemination of information, make direct contact with a prospective tenant or (as the case may be) prospective landlord (or the prospective landlord’s agent), and
• a prospective landlord (or the prospective landlord’s agent) and a prospective tenant can continue to communicate directly with each other.

And, the agent does no other lettings work or property management work in respect of the property, then, a licence is not required. This will include agents who simply provide an advertisement (on Rightmove for example) and pass the prospective landlord details to the prospective tenant who make direct contact and the landlord carries out viewings themselves etc. However, if such an agent wishes to offer a further service of granting a tenancy on behalf of the landlord for example, a licence will be required if the dwelling is in Wales.

Further, a licence is not required if the only thing a person does is any one (but not more than one) of the following things:

• arranging and conducting viewings with prospective tenants;
• preparing, or arranging the preparation of, the tenancy agreement;
• preparing, or arranging the preparation of, any inventory or schedule of condition;

Nor must the person do any letting or property management work for this exemption to apply. This allows firms which only prepare inventories for example to not require a licence as long as they don’t do any other letting or property management work.

If a person does any one of the following things (and only one of the following) and does no lettings work whatsoever, no licence will be required:

• being the principal point of contact for the tenant in relation to matters arising under the tenancy;
• making arrangements with a person to carry out repairs or maintenance;
• making arrangements with a tenant or occupier of the dwelling to secure access to the dwelling for any purpose;
• checking the contents or condition of the dwelling, or arranging for them to be checked;
• serving notice to terminate a tenancy.

For example, this exemption would allow a person to serve a possession notice without requiring a licence (as long as they do no other lettings or management activities).

Landlord exemptions from requiring a licence

If a property has been purchased with an existing tenant in place and the owner does not intend to continue renting to the tenant and intends to occupy the property as their home, the owner does not need a licence if they take steps to recover possession within 28 days from when it was assigned to them and as long as they “continue to diligently pursue the recovery of possession”. As with registration, advice should be sought in this situation because failure to have a licence could seriously affect possession. It might be a better solution to pass management of the property (including serving possession notices) to a licensed agent.

More FAQs are available on the Rent Smart Wales website here.

If a property has been recently purchased with an intention to rent it out, a licence must be applied for within 28 days from when the property has been assigned to the landlord.

Please see our landlord’s guide to Rent Smart Wales registration, licensing and training.

More FAQs are available on the Rent Smart Wales website here.

Any person on a contract of service (employed by the agent) or on an apprenticeship with the landlord or agent does not need to obtain a licence. Such a person is known as a “connected person”. The landlord or agents licence will contain conditions that all ‘connected persons’ must complete the training.

Staff or apprentices will require training if they do any one or more of the following:

Lettings work

• publishing advertisements or disseminating information;
• arranging and conducting viewings with prospective tenants;
• preparing, or arranging the preparation of, the tenancy agreement;
• preparing, or arranging the preparation of, any inventory or schedule of condition;

Property Management Work

• collecting rent;
• being the principal point of contact for the tenant in relation to matters arising under the tenancy;
• making arrangements with a person to carry out repairs or maintenance;
• making arrangements with a tenant or occupier of the dwelling to secure access to the dwelling for any purpose;
• checking the contents or condition of the dwelling, or arranging for them to be checked;
• serving notice to terminate a tenancy.

A person not doing any one of the above mentioned activities (for example only looking after the agents business accounts) will not require the training. It must be made clear to them that they must not undertake any of the above activities in the event of short staff for example without having completed the training.

Please see our agent’s guide to Rent Smart Wales licensing and training.

More FAQs are available on the Rent Smart Wales website here.