In an embarrassing U-turn, government plans to make landlords responsible for checking the immigration status of their tenants—and fining them up to £3,000 if they fail to do so—are in tatters.
Reforms First Unveiled in Queen’s Speech
The crazy plan was first aired during the Queen’s speech in May this year, as part of a new immigration Bill, but the planned reforms were quickly criticized as being unworkable and pretty much guaranteed to burden ordinary landlords with masses of red tape.
Under the terms of the legislation, landlords would be required to check migration status to ensure tenants had the right to be in the UK. If they failed to do so, they could be fined £1,000, but repeated failures to make the correct checks could result in a fine of £3,000 per illegal tenant.
Ministers Unhappy with Flagship Proposal
Several leading Tory and Lib Dem ministers are said to be seriously unhappy with the plan to make landlords responsible for checking whether potential tenants are illegal immigrants. They fear that the plan will end up criminalising ordinary people who let out second homes or take in lodgers.
Proposed Amendments to Legislation
Ministers are now proposing that several key amendments are made to the original proposal, namely that the scope of the bill is significantly narrowed so that only large scale landlords with dozens of properties are affected. In reality, many ministers believe that the legislation will be rolled out in a very small number of areas as pilot schemes, and then quietly abandoned when the dust has settled.
