The ‘Right to Rent’ checks are the checks that landlords in the West Midlands are going to have to do from 1 December 2014 to ensure that prospective tenants are not illegal immigrants.
Sue Lukes did a three part series on this:
Legal Links
I am grateful to the Home Office for letting me have some links to relevant pages as follows:
The Law:
The Immigration (Residential Accommodation) (Prescribed Requirements and Codes of Practice) Order 2014 (this is the general order)
The Immigration (Residential Accommodation) (Prescribed Cases) Order 2014 (this how tenancy agreements in England work with the scheme and modifications to the Act in light of comments at the panel)
The Codes:
Right to rent immigration checks: landlords’ code of practice. This is the main code which we have linked to before. Worryingly it is still described as ‘draft’.
Avoiding discrimination: landlords code of practice. Again described as ‘draft’, this gives landlords information about avoiding unlawful discrimination when conducting right to rent checks in the private rented sector.
I was also told that some short guidance notes (leaflets) will also be uploaded onto gov.uk over the next few days.
Online aid
I am informed that the right to rent online aid will also open up for landlords to make verification checks with the Home Office from Monday 3 November 2014.
This is so that
landlords and tenants entering into a tenancy agreement to start on or after 1st December are able to obtain confirmation of a right to rent in advance. This latter service is for those who have sent all of their documents to the Home Office for an in time application or appeal and asylum seekers awaiting the final determination of a protection claim.
So now you know!
