Immigration Act affects landlords
The Home Office has announced that the date for new offences under the Immigration Act 2016, relevant to the private rented sector in England, will come into force from 1 December 2016.
The new measures will make it easier for landlords to evict illegal migrant tenants and create new criminal offences for rogue landlords and agents who knowingly or, with reasonable cause to believe, let to illegal migrants.
The main sanction for landlords who fail to perform adequate checks on their tenants will remain a civil penalty under the right to rent scheme.
The Act creates four new offences to target those rogue landlords and agents who deliberately and repeatedly fail to comply with the right to rent scheme or fail to evict individuals who they know or have reasonable cause to believe are disqualified from renting as a result of their immigration status.
