24th
Feb 2022
The government has issued a new guide to make sure landlords do not actively discriminate against potential tenants whilst carrying out their Right To Rent obligations.
This will only be applied to tenancy agreements starting on or after April 6th as well as existing renters who have to undergo a repeat check on or after the same date this year.
The guide says it contains practical help and guidance for landlords and letting agents on what they can or cannot do, to avoid ‘unlawful discrimination’ when fulfilling their obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and the Immigration Act 2014.
Unlawful discrimination can take many and varied forms, however the document’s focus is on stopping racial discrimination.
The guide ‘flags’ up what landlords must not do:
- discriminate when conducting right to rent checks;
- simply check the status of those who the landlord thinks appear or are likely to be migrants;
- treat those with a time-limited right to rent more or less favourably;
- treat those who have access to the Home Office online checking service more or less favourably;
- treat those who provide a manual documentation as listed in the list of acceptable documents more or less favourably;
- make assumptions about a person’s right to rent, or their immigration status on the basis of their colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins, accent or length of time they have been resident in the UK.
Richard Merrick of PIMS says:” This will undoubtedly see a rise in complaints and cases where rejected applicants pulling out the race discrimination card despite being turned down for perfectly legal reasons.”
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