A leading housing lawyer has condemned feedback on the Right to Rent pilot scheme as a fiasco and “even worse than I expected”.
Giles Peaker was commenting on the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) report on the Right to Rent pilot that has been taking place in the west midlands since last December.
Peaker, a partner at law firm Anthony Gold, said the policy “is going to have to take some quite astonishing justification in any Home Office evaluation to take forward nationally.
“It is, on a purely practical basis, a fiasco”.
He made his views plain on the Almost Legal website.
The Home Office has yet to issue its own evaluation of the trial but has announced that the scheme will be rolled out nationally, with legislation likely to be announced shortly and both enacted and implemented quickly.
It will require all landlords – or their agents – to carry out immigration checks on prospective tenants, and also to do further checks on tenants whose immigration status may subsequently change.
Agents and landlords who fail to carry out checks face criminal sanctions, including up to five years in jail. In the pilot, landlords have been able to fully delegate the responsibility to agents.
The JCWI report found that 69% of landlords do not feel they should be made to undertake checks and 77% are not in favour of a national roll-out.
The Chartered Institute of Housing has also added its voice to growing concerns.
It said the pilot scheme had not been a success, and that the Joint Council’s report had flagged up “clear dangers that it won’t do what the government wants – deter ‘illegal’ immigrants – but it may well do something no one wants – make it harder for people with every right to be in the UK to find a decent home.”
The JCWI report is here
Refreshing to hear some common sense. That means the Government is bound to act against such views and introduce it anyway! After all politicians are never wrong are they? well not until the other colour politicians come into power! As the article says the Government will be rolling it out irrespective of landlord/agents/JCWI feedback.
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We have say the Husband arrive with a 2 year work visa but the wife arrives a few months later with no visa and move in without telling us. Why take the risk. Criminal sanctions against me as a business owner – no thanks Im not putting myself or my business in that risk. Its not as if we cant let properties to EU or UK passport holders anyway.
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