Tijen Ahmet gives us a brief overview of the new legislation and explains what it could all mean for the lettings sector…
The Immigration Bill introduced to Parliament on 10 October 2013 is to become UK law by Spring 2014, and will require private landlords and letting agencies to check the immigration status of tenants residing in the UK for longer than three months. The consequence of failing to carry out appropriate checks can lead to fines of up to £3,000 per illegal tenant.
The Government’s consultation for this proposal ran for seven weeks from 3 July to 21 August 2013, and sought to give landlords overall responsibility for checking tenants’ immigration status before renting property, just as businesses are required to complete checks on prospective foreign employees before they can commence employment in the UK.
The Immigration Bill has further reiterated the purpose of the consultation by restricting access to private rented accommodation for illegal migrants. This naturally caused much debate amongst those in the lettings sector; firstly over whether it is the landlord’s responsibility to make these checks and secondly whether they have the ability to recognise different types of visa documents.
Documents To Be Checked
The main issue addressed by the consultation was how to simplify the process for checking documents in order to avoid overburdening landlords.
To achieve this, the government widened the list of ”approved documents” to match more closely the existing practices by landlords, and also set the list of acceptable documents in secondary legislation to simplify any future revisions if necessary.
Examples of acceptable documents include:
- Visa or passport stamp held by short term visitors;
- Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) held by temporary and permanent residents;
- Home Office letter confirming an outstanding application or appeal;
- Documents for those exempt from immigration control e.g. diplomatic passports;
- Residence certificate or certificate of application for European nationals;
- UK Birth Certificate plus one of the following:
- employer’s references
- UK driving licence
- letter from a UK further or higher education institution; or
- police reports in relation to those with stolen documents
The Biometric Residence Permit that was first rolled out in November 2008 will most certainly simplify the checking process. This is a credit card like permit issued to immigrants and replaces the vignette previously placed in passports. It holds an individual’s biographic details, immi¬gration status and entitlements, and also has a photograph, signature and chip that holds the individual’s fingerprints. A Home Office advice line is also being introduced to assist with any queries.
Potential Impact Of The Scheme
Following the concern that landlords would be more minded to rent to “British” tenants due to a lower legal risk, Immigration Minister, Mark Harper, supported amendments to prevent discrimination to certain groups. Another implication of the legislation would be that landlords held to be illegally renting would have no recourse in respect of unpaid rent, as they should not be renting to illegal tenants in the first place.
It may also make it more difficult for legal immigrants to secure accommodation, and the added administrative costs on landlords may result in higher rents.
Source; Prime Resi