A mandatory landlord licensing scheme is set to be introduced by the Conservative government in a surprise move.
David Cameron announced last week that the current ‘right to rent’ trial established in the Midlands would be rolled out across the UK. He then suggested that a mandatory licensing scheme would be introduced for all private landlords.
The Prime Minister said: ‘For the first time we’ve had landlords checking whether their tenants are here legally. The Liberal Democrats only wanted us to run a pilot on that one. But now we’ve got a majority, we will roll it out nationwide, and we’ll change the rules so landlords can evict illegal immigrants more quickly.’
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This new law will mean that a tenancy will automatically end if the tenant is unlawfully present (e.g. if their visa ends).
At the moment, this relates to specific rental properties of three storeys or more, shared by five or more people in two different households (namely HMOs houses of multiple occupancy). The Government has not made it clear whether it regards basic mandatory licensing as sufficient in its armory against illegal immigrants.
Landlords will be keeping a keen eye to this new legislation…
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