Julian Knight – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Knight on 2015-12-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what protections she plans to put in place for landlords who, unwittingly and after carrying out reasonable checks, allow an illegal immigrant to rent their property.

James Brokenshire

The Immigration Act 2014 prohibits landlords from leasing property to persons who are disqualified from renting by reason of their immigration status. Right to rent checks are simple to conduct and comprise of an examination of documents from a range prescribed in law as acceptable for the purposes of establishing a right to rent. Landlords are not expected to be immigration or forgery experts and the Act provides defences in law for the landlord who may have accepted a falsified document in good faith and having acted reasonably.