"Creating a so called ‘hostile environment’ that targets vulnerable men, women and children is bad enough, implementing a scheme that traps and discriminates against British citizens is absurd."
The Right to Rent scheme requires landlords and agents to check the immigration status of all prospective tenants and refuse a tenancy to irregular migrants. If they fail to fully comply with the scheme they face a fine of up to £3,000 or a prison sentence of up to five years.
The scheme creates structural incentives for landlords to discriminate unlawfully against foreigners and ethnic minorities, says the report.
However, according to the report, 51% of landlords surveyed said that the scheme would make them less likely to consider letting to foreign nationals. 42% of landlords stated that they were less likely to rent to someone without a British passport as a result of the scheme. This rose to 48% when explicitly asked to consider the impact of the criminal sanction.
An enquiry from a British Black Minority Ethnic (BME) tenant without a passport was ignored or turned down by 58% of landlords, in a mystery shopping exercise.
Currently in force in England and poised for imminent roll-out in the devolved regions, the scheme does not contain adequate safeguards against discrimination, adequate mechanisms to monitor discrimination, or any form of redress for victims of discrimination. JCWI is calling on the Government to abandon it and to immediately halt any plans for roll-out.
Saira Grant, chief executive of JCWI, said: “We have been warning for some time that the Right to Rent scheme is failing on all fronts. It treats many groups who need housing unfairly, it is clearly discriminatory, it is putting landlords in an impossible position, and there is no evidence that it is doing anything to tackle irregular immigration. Creating a so called ‘hostile environment’ that targets vulnerable men, women and children is bad enough, implementing a scheme that traps and discriminates against British citizens is absurd. Expanding the scheme to devolved nations without taking into account the discrimination it causes would be misguided and unjustifiable. It is time to stop the scheme before it does any more damage.”
JCWI’s research suggests that landlords who have no wish to discriminate are being forced to do so by the scheme – with people who have a full right to rent a home in the UK being disadvantaged, along with others who should be able to access housing.
Landlords can be heavily fined or even imprisoned if they fail to fully comply with the scheme. This, combined with the complexity of the immigration checks they must undertake, means that in some cases they are pushed into choosing tenants who feel like a ‘safer bet’ because they hold a British passport or because they ‘seem British’ or their name sounds British, the report shows.
Residential Landlords Association Chairman Alan Ward said: “We share JCWI concerns over document discrimination and these findings reflect issues that the Residential Landlords Association raised right from the start. The Government’s own figures show the Right to Rent scheme is not working so maybe it is time to scrap it and think again. With the threat of a jail sentence hanging over landlords if they get it wrong it is hardly surprising that they are being cautious.
There are more than 400 acceptable documents proving right to rent from within the EU alone and landlords are making risk-based decisions and only accepting documents that they recognise and have confidence in. The RLA supports landlords by offering immigration and right to rent courses which guide them through the complex process – including a section on the Equality Act and how to avoid discrimination.”
The scheme is a key plank of the Government’s drive to lower net migration with authorities hoping than an inability to rent a home in the UK will push migrants who have no legal status in Britain to leave the country. But the JCWI report shows the Government is not monitoring whether the scheme is achieving this aim, or whether it is pushing vulnerable people into the hands of rogue landlords.
Further Findings:
A white British tenant without a passport was 11% more likely to be ignored or turned down by landlords than a white British applicant with a passport. (17% of British citizens do not hold passports.)
BME communities worse impacted: Where neither the white British tenant nor the BME British tenant had a passport, the BME tenant was 14% more likely to be turned away or ignored. JCWI’s mystery shopping exercise found no evidence of ethnicity discrimination where a non BME and a BME British citizen both held passports – demonstrating that the discrimination arises from the scheme itself.
85% of inquiries from the most vulnerable individuals, such as asylum seekers, stateless persons, and victims of modern day slavery, who require landlords to do an online check with the Home Office to confirm they have been granted permission to rent, received no response at all from landlords in the mystery shopping exercise.
Kirby is a US citizen married to an EU national with a full right to rent in the UK and had this to say: “Two days before we were supposed to move in, we get an email from the rental agency saying ‘we’re not going to release the keys to you, you’ve lost your deposit with us, because you’re not legal in this country’ … It was awful. I was crying for that entire 24 hour period. I mean, I have a 6 year old. My child was going to be on the street. It was awful, it was absolutely awful.”
Clare Higson, Norfolk, member of Eastern Landlords Association said: “How can we, as landlords, ever know really if someone has got the right to rent? Why should we be working as immigration officers? When actually we haven’t got a clue and we certainly don’t have any information, or any training. I feel I have absolutely no way at all of telling whether or not someone has got legitimate immigration papers, how would I recognise a false passport or travel document?”
