The government has been urged to freeze its rollout of the right to rent scheme, requiring landlords who let property in England to carry out checks on the immigration status of potential tenants.
Anyone who breaches this requirement will be fined up to £3,000 for each illegal immigrant in their property.
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) has said that the scheme should not be expanded to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland until enough evidence has been gathered to prove it does not leads to discrimination against foreign nationals, British citizens without passports and British black and minority ethnic tenants.
Right to rent was initially trialled in the West Midlands before being launched across England in 2016 as part of the government’s hostile environment policy, an attempt to crackdown on people in the country illegally.
This policy has come under sharp focus after the Windrush scandal, when people who have lived and worked in Britain legally for decades were wrongly challenged over their immigration status.
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We want to hear from renters and landlords about right to rent. Have you faced discrimination as a result of it? What is it like implementing it as a landlord? Does it have any unintended consequences? Share your stories, thoughts and views.
