Right to Rent rules for landlords have been thrown in to chaos after the government lost a challenge against the legislation in the High Court.
A judge found Right to Rent rules in England breached human rights laws and warned rolling out the scheme to the rest of the UK would break equality laws if the Home Office failed to carry out an ‘adequate’ evaluation of how the rules worked first.
The case was brought by the Joint Council of Welfare for Immigrants (JCWI), which claimed Right to Rent discriminated against immigrants and British ethnic minorities who did not hold a UK passport.
Right to Rent says that landlords must check the residency status of tenants before the start or renewal of a tenancy and cannot rent a home to someone who does not have documents proving they can live in the UK.