Right to rent - a legal minefield and potential racism

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-30251741

I think its already quite easy for a decent landlord to avoid illegal immigrants by using a referencing company. Its not in a landlord's interest to have a tenant deported and unable to pay the rent. I don't see why further measures are needed.

I am concerned that legal immigrants will find it impossible to find rental accomodiation. It will be simpler for a landlord just to pick the white applicant who has a british passport. It will end up being the 1960s where adverts said "no blacks - no irish".

[BackOnlyBriefly]

TheChandler exactly. So since we don't want LLs helping illegal immigrants to hide and/or exploiting them we pass a law so they can't legally do it.

Any intended or untended consequences to law abiding people must be considered, but I don't see what the argument is against the law itself.

[TheChandler]

We don't want lots of things BackOnlyBriefly, but not all of us agree on them and not all of them get made into law. Not all law is good law and no law is beyond repeal. The arguments against the law are that it doesn't meet the principle of proportionality - and I don't only mean that the fines are excessive, but that the measure adopted are disproportionate to a needs/benefits analysis. Its also placing an incredibly high and disproportionate legal duty to control immigration on those who aren't qualified or necessarily competent to carry out a function of government.

Personally, what I really don't want is to live in a society where people are turned into snoopers like those in former Communist countries not so long ago who would "inform" on their neighbours, who would then disappear in the middle of the night.

But basically I think its a pre-election headline grabber designed to steal back a few floating voters from UKIP, and I don't see why landlords should pay the price for that.

[ReallyTired]

" Its also placing an incredibly high and disproportionate legal duty to control immigration on those who aren't qualified or necessarily competent to carry out a function of government."

It also requires some quite personal details about a tenant which normally a landlord does not care about. I don't want to do checks on my tenant to see if he is lying.

I am worried that the fall out from this law will be worst than the problem it is trying to solve. My excellent south african tenant has already been the victim of racist from his nasty neighbour. I am worried that the old fart will use this law to try and hound him out of the flat.

"
But basically I think its a pre-election headline grabber designed to steal back a few floating voters from UKIP, and I don't see why landlords should pay the price for that."

Ulimately its law abiding black people who will suffer from this law. Landlords will be scared to take on anyone who poses a risk. Maybe this is what UKIO supporters want.

[TheSporkforeatingkyriarchy]

Seeing as many if not most undocumented immigrants come and gain housing as documented immigrants and then overstay or are as Chunderella discussed are waiting in extant leave while waiting for a decision, I really cannot see the point of this legislation other than to be a pain for landlords and documented migrants and occasionally get some funds. Documented migrants will gain housing and then remain where possible after their documentation expires when the become undocumented immigrants, unless they expect landlords to regularly check for such things. It's all a bit odd and as several have said seems to be just to push away immigrants rather than actually do anything about helping people gain documentation or anything. Sounds like a great way to increase homelessness though.

As a documented non-EU migrant who has spent several hundred pounds and had to prove myself, my relationship, my finances and more to the UK government to get my Leave to Remain visa (and it would be over a grand for me to get citizenship along with testing and such), living with my British husband and our British kids who have no other citizenship, I find it amusing to hear that I am considered such a flight risk by some people.

[TheChandler]

Chunderella Additionally, wherever you stand on the immigration debate, I would think adding another layer of red tape to be dealt with by private individuals is, at the very least, a concept worth critically examining. This is an effective admission that the government can't control immigration in the way they and some of the public might like- and I don't blame them for that, it's simply not possible. So rather than tell the truth about why it's not going to happen, they're simply attempting to hive off responsibility to private individuals engaged in commerce. The buck is being passed to the small businessman, which a huge number of LLs are, because the state can't do the job and is unwilling to explain why.

I agree; I increasingly wonder whether some legislation is actually being drafted by lawyers who have a full grasp of all the laws, including European law, that might apply to it and potentially render it void (no doubt causing immense surprise and astonishment at governmental level); I also wonder how effective any consultation measures prior to drafting are - do private landlords even have a representative body that can be consulted and able to make representations on their behalf? I don't think so - the consultation process itself is steeped in mystery and somewhat obscure.