New research has found that landlords are less likely to take on foreign students as tenants since the introduction of new Right to Rent rules last year.
According to StudentTenant.com, nearly one in four landlords is less likely to consider a non-British tenant, while three out of four student landlords would not take on a tenant if they could not instantly provide legal documentation.
StudentTenant.com said that because of requirements from the Government to check the legitimacy of documentation, landlords were less willing to take on the extra burden of international tenants.
Danielle Cullen, managing director at StudentTenant.com, said, “When the new Right to Rent regulations were introduced there was uproar amongst the landlord community, because of the supposedly unfair burden placed on them in relation to enforcing immigration laws. I have to say that the apparent ineffective implementation of the regulations so far seems to have warranted that uproar, particularly given the adverse effects on the international community legally residing within the UK.
“The worst part must be the lack of resources to actually police the changes, represented by the very minimal number of fines and deportations. Instead of actually assisting with a problem which should essentially be managed by the government, it has simply created divides and increased discrimination and access to housing for non-British tenants which is just not acceptable.”
Since the introduction of the new rules in February last year, all private landlords in England must check new tenants have the right to be in the UK before renting out their property as part of the Government’s wider reforms to the immigration system.
Landlords who fail to check a potential tenant’s legal documents which allow them to live in the UK could receive a fine of up to £3,000 per tenant. The scheme requires landlords make checks 28 days before the start of a new tenancy.
In other findings, 47% of student landlords still feel that the changes would not have a significant impact on filtering out illegal immigrants in England – the core reason why the scheme was set up in the first place. What’s even more worrying is that 17% of student landlords were still unaware of these new rules.
Government figures regarding the right to rent checks found that of the 7,806 calls made by landlords to the Home Office between July 2015 and June 2016, only 32 illegal tenants were deported – calling into question how effective the checks actually are.
Details of the new checks that need to be made by landlords can be found here.
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