Last week the Immigration Bill was given its first reading in Parliament. As was mooted in the Queen’s Speech, it contains requirements on landlords and agents to check the immigration status of tenants, with penalties for failure to comply.

If the Bill becomes law, people living in the UK without the “right to rent” are to be prohibited from renting premises in the UK. Section 17 of the Bill provides that persons “disqualified by immigration status” are not to be granted tenancies. Tenants who become disqualified during a tenancy are to lose their right to rent.

And the landlord/agent is responsible for checking.

If a landlord and/or agent lets a property to, renews a tenancy agreement with, or possibly allows continued occupation once a statutory periodic tenancy arises of a disqualified person, that landlord/agent will face a penalty of up to £3000.00.

There is a list of excuses that landlords can look to rely on, including that it was the agent’s fault (!), or that the “prescribed requirements” ( yet to be prescribed, but probably something along the lines of taking copies of passports/visas etc) were complied with before the tenancy was granted. If a person becomes disqualified during the tenancy the Landlord can try to wriggle out of paying a penalty if he tells on the tenant. Agents will have similar excuses set out in section 21.

The penalty system looks like this: 1. Landlord/agent receives penalty 2. Landlord/agent objects 3. Penalty is cancelled, reduced, increased, or no action to be taken. The prospect of an increase might put some people off lodging an objection.

The Bill anticipates that landlords might try to get around the responsibility to check immigration status by inserting a clause into the tenancy agreement prohibiting occupation by a disqualified person; section 17(6) provides that any such clause will be ignored for the purposes of determining whether there has been a contravention.

In anticipation of the fact that asking landlords and agents to do the job of the UKBA could give rise to racial profiling and discrimination ( hmmm, that name looks a bit foreign, let’s be on the safe side and not let our property to them),
Section 28 provides that a code of practice is to be issued to ensure compliance with the Equality Act 2010 and Race Relations ( Northern Ireland) Order 1997. Interestingly though a breach of the code will not incur civil or criminal proceedings. This looks like a dangerous balance: breach of the Immigration Act will incur a penalty, whereas breach of the so-called safe-guard will not.

Points to note:
• The Bill is currently in draft form. If and when it becomes law the current draft provisions may have been amended considerably.
• It does not apply to British Citizens, EEA nationals or Swiss nationals.
• Currently the referencing checks that reputable agents carry out would probably provide the necessary information ( sight of passports, evidence of bank accounts etc).
• The Bill covers tenancy agreements whether written or oral.

The above may seem unusually political for a Painsmith blog. This is not the intention. However Painsmith is committed to helping to eliminate discrimination in the private rental sector and in its current form this bill is set to cause problems.