5^th Feb 2018

A leading industry body for the private rented sector is taking the fight to the government to get rid of the immigration policy, saying that landlords should not be made “scapegoats for the failures of the border agencies.”

The Right to Rent Scheme has made landlords responsible for carrying out checks on their tenants' immigration status. They can face prosecution and fines if they know or have “reasonable cause to believe” that tenants that are renting their 'homes', do not have the 'Right to Rent' in Britain.

The organisation is supporting a Judicial Review of the 'Right to Rent' policy that is being sought for by the JCWI ( Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants) (JCWI) and is questioning the legality of the policy as it discriminates against foreign nationals.

The trade body is also supporting another similar case that the Camden Community Law Centre is hoping to take out against the policy.

Because of the threat of fines and prosecutions that they could face, landlords are becoming increasingly reluctant to rent their properties to non- UK nationals as forged documents would them at considerable risk.

The JCWI's research has found that the 'Right to Rent' scheme has made 51% of landlords steering clear of renting out properties to foreign nationals, as the trade body has also carried out similar research it will be used in both cases.

Time and time again the Home Office has turned down requests to publish information on the exact types of identification that is acceptable under the scheme, their reason being that there are too many countries with different types of ID for their nationals that can be listed.

The JCWI research states that 485 of landlords would be very reluctant to rent their property to people without a British passport because of the threat of criminal prosecutions; 17% of UK residents do not have a passport.

Last year in October, the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration announced an impending review of the 'Right to Rent', however with the caveat that it “will not examine any unintended consequences of Right to Rent, for example discrimination against would-be tenants, increased homelessness, or displacement.”

It also explained that, it “does not have the capacity to conduct a meaningful examination of the unintended consequences of RtR at this time.”

A spokesperson for the Trade Body, said: “When this policy was first discussed we warned the Government of the unintended consequences of the Right to Rent scheme.

“How can a landlord be expected to know what every passport in every country is supposed to look like?

“For the overwhelming majority of landlords it makes no commercial sense to limit their access to a large proportion of the prospective tenant market.

“It is the fear of criminal sanctions for getting it wrong which is causing many simply to want to play it safe.

“Landlords should not be used as scapegoats for the failures of the border agencies – it is time to suspend this controversial and unwelcome policy.”


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