By Ashley Young-
The High Court has astonishingly ruled that laws prohibiting illegal immigrants from renting properties are discriminatory and breach Human Right Laws
The “right to rent” scheme, which requires landlords to check the immigration status of tenants, was introduced in England in 2016.
Judges today discredited the right to rent scheme which call for landlords to check the immigration status of tenants which was introduced in 2016. They said it would be illegal to roll it out in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland without further evaluation.
The Home Office said it was “disappointed” by the ruling.
Mr Justice Spencer said the scheme had “little or no effect” on its main aim of controlling immigration and even if it had, this was “significantly outweighed by the discriminatory effect”.
The case was brought about by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), which claimed the scheme was “race discrimination against those who are perfectly entitled to rent”. One argument is that illegal immigrants should be entitled to accommodation just like everybody else with stable status, allowing their illegal status to undergo due process and be dealt with separately. The previous law was aimed to serve as a deterrent to those who may be in the country illegally.
However, new ruling has now altered the law and how landlords are expected to view illegal immigration.
Responding to the ruling, legal policy director Chai Patel said there was “no place for racism in the UK housing market”.
He added that the judgement “only reveals the tip of the iceberg” and called on Parliament to scrap the policy.
The Residential Landlords Association also welcomed the ruling and said the policy had turned landlords into “untrained and unwilling border police”.The group said its research had found that fear of getting things wrong led to private landlords being less likely to rent to those without a British passport or those with limited time to remain in the UK.
The Home Office said an independent study found no evidence of systematic discrimination in its policy and the scheme was intended to discourage illegal residence in the UK.
It said it had been granted permission to appeal and was giving careful consideration to the judge’s comments.