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Just how difficult can it be to check if someone is an illegal immigrant? Hardly requires the investigative talents of a Holmes or a Poirot you would think?
Perhaps we should ask Mark Harper. He was, you may recall, the immigration minister who recently quit after it turned out that the woman he has employed to clean his London flat for the past five years was an illegal immigrant.
In accepting his resignation Downing Street said: "There was no suggestion that Mr. Harper had knowingly employed an illegal immigrant".
It turns out that when the cleaner applied for the job in 2007 she provided a copy of her passport and a Home Office letter stating that she had indefinite leave to remain in the UK and had the right to work and run a business. Unfortunately Mr Harper did not check that the documents were genuine.
The truth about the woman's situation only came to light a few weeks ago when he did get round to checking her out with immigration officials.
So there are fake documents out there that are good enough to fool an immigration minister. Furthermore, it takes someone with the clout of a government minister – and an immigration minister at that – to discover that an immigrant is here illegally.
Hold those thoughts in mind when I say that the Government has introduced a bill that is to make private landlords and their letting agents responsible for checking the immigration status of potential tenants and that will make it an offence to rent out properties to people who do not have the right to live in Britain.
There is at the moment uncertainty about the fine detail of the new law and how it will operate. The legislation is still going through parliament, so there may be changes or amendments. Additionally there is to be a code of practice to be published that will cover compliance.
What is clear is that the new law will be backed by penalties. A landlord who lets a property to an "illegal" applicant could face court action and could be fined several thousand pounds.
The industry is not entirely comfortable with the concept of policing immigration rules but we are where we are and we're going to have to live with it. Just something else to be added to the already long list of requirements that have to be addressed when letting property
One would hope that this will not put anyone off investing in rental property but it does strengthen the argument that appointing an experienced and qualified letting agent to manage their properties is a good investment.
A professional and competent agency will already be conducting identity checks as part of the referencing process and here at Brown & Co, in preparation for the introduction of the new law that is scheduled to be introduced later this year, we are already asking to see passports, visas, national insurance numbers and relevant paperwork.
Clearly in the wake of the Harper affair there needs to be a system in place to check that the documents that are produced are genuine. If the fakes are good enough to fool an immigration minister then they might even be a problem for a landlord in Brigg.
The good thing about leaving this to managing agents like us is that a team handling many hundreds of lettings in the area every year is going to develop an expertise in the field, like so many other aspects of renting, that no individual landlord can match. Furthermore we are backed by professional indemnity insurance . . . just in case!
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