The ‘Right to Rent’ scheme means landlords have to check the immigration status of prospective tenants. Any landlord who is found to have rented to someone who doesn’t have the required immigration status will face a fine of up to £3,000 or a criminal sentence.
The Government hasn’t considered the concerns of landlords who don’t want to become border guards. And like so much else in the Hostile Environment, these rules don’t account for the fact that many people won’t have access to paperwork, for many reasons. What’s more, the ‘Right to Rent’ scheme causes a real risk of discrimination – the risk that people of colour, and people with foreign-sounding accents or names, will be passed over in favour of other applicants, even if they’ve lived here their whole lives. That’s why we’re taking the government to court.
Our legal challenge

Checking someone’s immigration status is a complex job, and the cost of getting it wrong is high. So it’s not surprising that l…