The Home Office has revealed plans to hugely increase the level of fines that landlords can face if they are found to have not checked tenants properly to see if they have the right to rent in a property or deliberately been involved in evading the rules.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick, who is also a former housing secretary, announced the massive ramping up of the fines, which will apply to businesses who employ people not entitled to work in the UK and are part of a wider attempt to reduce the number of migrants crossing the channel.
For landlords the fines will increase from £80 per lodger and £1,000 per occupier for a first breach to up to £5,000 per lodger and £10,000 per occupier.
Repeat breaches will be up to £10,000 per lodger and £20,000 per occupier, up from £500 and £3,000 respectively. The higher penalties will come in at the start of 2024.
320 penalties
At the same time Jenrick has also revealed that landlords have been hit with over 320 civil penalties worth a total of £215,500 since the start of 2018 when the Government’s Right to Rent rules were first introduced.
Jenrick says: “Making it harder for illegal migrants to work and operate in the UK is vital to deterring dangerous, unnecessary small boat crossings.
“Unscrupulous landlords and employers who allow illegal working and renting enable the business model of the evil people smugglers to continue.
“There is no excuse for not conducting the appropriate checks and those in breach will now face significantly tougher penalties.”
Landlords should already be checking the eligibility of anyone they employ or let a property to and there are a number of ways to do this, which are not changing, including via a manual check of original documentation and a Home Office online checking system.
