Landlords demand clarity on migrants crackdown
08-04-2015
Claer Barrett, Personal Finance Editor
Landlords say UK ministers' proposed crackdown on renting to illegal migrants is a response to the hundreds in Calais who are trying to get to Britain
©Getty
Landlords say UK ministers' proposed crackdown on renting to illegal migrants is a response to the hundreds in Calais who are trying to get to Britain
Buy-to-let landlords have branded government threats to jail those who lease properties to illegal migrants as a knee-jerk reaction to the scenes of chaos in Calais. They demanded more clarity on how the plans would be implemented.
The forthcoming immigration bill will contain a new criminal offence targeted at unscrupulous landlords and letting agents who repeatedly fail to conduct “right to rent” checks to assess the immigration status of tenants, or fail to evict illegal migrants from properties.
The bill will also make it quicker and easier for landlords to evict tenants whom the Home Office has deemed no longer have the right to stay in the UK.
Ministers said on Monday that landlords and agents who failed to comply faced five years’ imprisonment, fines of up to £3,000 and being “blacklisted” from letting properties under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
However, landlords questioned how the hardline approach would ensure that illegal immigrants were actually leaving the country.
“A landlord can check a tenant’s migration status, and serve notice if necessary but he isn’t the Border Agency,” said Chris Norris, head of policy at the National Landlords Association.
The NLA’s 60,000 members are demanding greater clarity from the Home Office over what form of action landlords can reasonably be expected to take.
“If a tenant is told by the Home Office that they don’t have the right to rent, they could turn the property into a fortress to stop themselves from being removed,” Mr Norris said. “Or they could simply disappear into the night, which fails to solve the problem.”
Mr Norris said although the industry had been consulted over other measures in the bill, the criminal sanctions were a surprise addition. He questioned whether the government was “getting the rhetoric right” in light of the situation in Calais.
David Lawrenson of Letting Focus, a property consultant, said the bill was not aimed at the law-abiding majority of the UK’s estimated 2m buy-to-let landlords.
“This is aimed at the black economy, where substandard overcrowded accommodation is often linked to the illegal employment of migrants and forms one part in a chain of criminality,” he said.
“The publicity surrounding the bill means that incompetent but straight landlords will now be more likely to carry out the right to rent checks but the rogue landlords still won’t bother — though the five-year sentence will be more of a deterrent.”
Britain not ‘land of milk and honey’, says immigration minister
Migrants walk near the road where lorries pass after they left their hiding spot at the Eurotunnel site early in the morning in Calais, northern France, July 29, 2015. A migrant died trying to cross to Britain from France early on Wednesday, French police said, adding to a number of recent deaths in the Channel Tunnel as British ministers and security chiefs were to meet over the crisis in Calais. There were about 1,500 attempts by migrants to access the tunnel on Tuesday night, a Eurotunnel spokesman said, after 2,000 attempts the previous night. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol
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The Home Office said the new bill was designed to make it so difficult for illegal immigrants to live or work in the UK that they would voluntarily accept it was time to leave.
Right to rent checks, which require landlords to confirm the nationality and visa status of potential tenants before letting a property, are being trialled in the Midlands before being rolled out to the rest of England this year.
The Home Office has yet to release any details of the trial but the Association of Residential Letting Agents said feedback from members in pilot areas had been very positive.
“Conducting ID checks on tenants has been in our code of practice for years, though some tenants have been unwilling [to show passports and visa documentation],” said David Cox, managing director of the association. “Now it’s the law, it makes things easier for landlords and their agents.”
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