Conservative and Lib Dem ministers are furious with the new proposals by the government to introduce legislation forcing landlords to check tenants’ immigration status, to establish that they are not “illegals”, before renting out their property or face fines.

They are also deeply concerned that literally hundreds of thousands families, that rent out their second properties, under future law will become classed as criminals.

This uprising has thrown the Governments proposals into disarray, as the only way they can save “face”, is to dramatically reduce the legislation to only those landlords who have large numbers of properties in their portfolios.

According to the original proposals landlords who are caught for not checking the immigration status of their tenants, would face fines of up to £3,000.

Ministers feel that landlords should not have to work for the Government by supplementing the Border Agency’s work and in effect become “Community Immigration Officials”-without pay.

It is felt that more than likely very limited pilot schemes may be introduced and then possibly conveniently forgotten.

Both the Business Secretary and Communities Secretary, Vince Cable and Eric Pickles respectively, have deepening concerns as to what extent of red tape would be imposed on landlords who are renting out second properties as homes to renters.

Under the proposed new legislation all private landlords would have carry out the checks before giving tenants the “keys to the doors”. Under the law future tenants must show the correct documents declaring them to be citizens or allowing them to be residents in the UK.This was the mainstay of the proposed measures announced in the Queen’s Speech in May that would help limit numbers of illegal and legal immigrants arriving into the country.  The about turn will be hugely embarrassing to the Government.

Landlords who broke this law would be fined £1,000 per illegal immigrant in any of their properties. Plans to also introduce £3,000 per illegal would be levied on those landlords who received an “advisory” letter and were caught in breach of the law.

An even stronger measure would be that families found guilty of “harbouring” illegal immigrants in their homes, could face fines from £80 and as high as £5,000.

There are over 1.6 million people who have a second home and they could be entrapped if the Bill goes through.