The immigration status of tenants will only have to be checked under a ‘light touch’ regime, housing minister Mark Prisk has said.
Prisk was speaking to MPs who were asking questions about proposals unveiled in the Queen’s Speech which will make landlords responsible for checking whether their tenants have a right to be in the UK.
If landlords fail in their duties, they have been threatened with heavy fines.
Few details, including responsibilities delegated to agents, have yet been spelled out, but Prisk told MPs that the new rules would not be over-burdensome.
He said: “What we’re asking for is all landlords undertake that basic check to see people are who they are and they are entitled to be here.
“The intention is to make it light-touch. We’re working on the proposals at the moment and we don’t want to make it unduly onerous. The idea is to make sure someone takes a reasonable step to check someone’s identity and that would naturally be a passport.”
Prisk also dismissed suggestions that a national registration scheme for landlords would be set up, but said that selective licensing schemes could be more widely used.
He said: “If there’s a good argument demonstrated that a significant proportion of local authorities would welcome an extension, I would certainly be happy to look at the evidence.”
Comments
Well well Mark Prisk (is that spelt correctly?) well done sonny, we're in for a bit of light touch and not unduly onerous border agency moon lighting whilst the border agency do exactly WHAT? If they can't check passports what are the miserable excuse for uncivil servants good for?? A frigging landlord, the whipping boy for every local authority, every govt department of un measured useless administrators, every politician and most agencies and charities such as shelter will shoulder the blame, not just for letting properties, but for Britains appalling open border shambles that now has extremist Moslems grooming others to execute soldiers under Jihad on the streets of Britain, mass grooming and predatory gangs raping assaulting and terrorising young white females and gangs running hideous prostitution and human trafficking rings, not to mention drugs etc and the poor old landlord will be soon to blame. LIPSTICK ON A PIG YOU USELESS OVERPAID MORONS. You really have your priorities right and your finger on the button, don't you you Prisk!