The Immigration Bill is now Law!

This is going to be fun trying to work out whether the passport you are looking at is actually anything like the real thing and also deciphering whether you are looking at an elaborate fake or not. Even the Police and Border Agency spend hours trying to sus out dodgy documentation and they have a lot of guidance literature to help them so it will be a minefield for us landlords and agents.

If you require sight of valid documentation - ie Passport, what do you do if the tenant appears British, maybe DSS and has never had a passport, many British citizens have never had one? Do you have to turn them away as they cannot prove a right to reside?
Or, if they are current tenants - do you have to inform the Home Office that they have refused to provide passport ID and they may be illegal??

Yvonne

Reply to the comment left by "Yvonne B." at "22/05/2014 - 01:08":

That's a good question, Yvonne.

This may be addressed in future guidance.

The existing guidance for employers could be an interesting read since in effect what must be checked is similar: At the moment it looks like anyone without a passport must provide a full birth certificate or certificate of naturalisation.

Does this mean that we now havbe a law that says we landlords have to verify right to reside without any guidance on how to perform that verification, because the Secretary of State has not yet issued the code of practice?

Are we in the situation that we either do nothing, because the guidance has not been issued, or make checks that we deem appropriate and risk breaking the Equality Act?

We ask for a Home Office letter (then we check with HO if necessary) stating they have leave to stay for all the proposed occupants & passport copies. Cover one`s back.

Reply to the comment left by "Yvonne B." at "22/05/2014 - 01:08":

If they are DSS tenants then presumably proof of their benefits would suffice, as the DWP (DSS) would already have verified their right to reside here.

Many of my residents do not have passports or birth certificates, but they are claiming welfare benefits so at some point they must have proved to the DWP (a Government department) who they are and that they have a right to reside here and claim benefits here. Surely, if all the checks carried out by the State have already verified who they are, then can a landlord rely on this?

Many of my residents have been street homeless and no longer have passports or birth certificates, and certainly don't have funds to obtain such documents, are landlords supposed to leave them to die on the streets, or can we accept their welfare benefit award letter as sufficient evidence that we can house them?

As my existing residents are unlikely to have a passport or birth certificate, should I report them all to the Home Office? Does anyone have a contact phone number or e-mail address for someone at the Home Office to whom I can report my residents to?????

If you were to accept benefit documents as proof, these would need to specifically spell out whether the benefit is means tested or not. Non UK or EEA immigrants subject to immigration control are allowed to claim CONTRIBUTION based benefits (e.g. Contribution based Job Seekers Allowance as opposed to income based Job Seekers Allowance) - these aren't classed as public funds as the claimant has paid National Insurance in order to receive them.
In the specific case of someone who's street homeless, I would suggest asking them to obtain a letter from the Job Centre handling their claim, to the effect that they are claiming income based benefit.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/350211/Landlords_scheme_-_draft_Code_of_Practice.pdf

Applies to West Midlands from December but will roll out countrywide eventually.