Immigration Act 2016

We advised that the Home Office had announced that landlords /letting agents renting to illegal immigrants would face criminal prosecution. From the 1st December 2016, the Secretary of State will now be able to serve a notice on a landlord informing him that some or all of the occupiers in a property do not have a "Right to Rent". The landlord will then be placed under an obligation to take steps within a reasonable time to evict those tenants. “Reasonable time” generally means four weeks, so if the tenant does not vacate in four weeks, the landlord will need to take further action to obtain vacant possession.

Where the Secretary of State serves a notice/s advising the landlord that all the occupiers of a property have no "Right to Rent" the landlord may serve a notice to end the tenancy. Once the notice has expired, the tenant has no right to occupy the property and can be evicted by the landlord without the need for a court order.

If a notice is served that specifies that only some of the occupiers do not have a "Right to Rent" then the landlord must still go to court and obtain a possession order. This is obtained by relying on the new ground 7B found in the NEW section 8 notice which will come into effect in England only, from 1 December 2016.

The new section 8 notice will need to be used in ALL cases where a section 8 notice is being relied upon on or after the 1 December 2016.

The new section 8 notice will be available for Guild Members on 1st December 2016.

These changes, along with the proposed changes to be introduced within the Housing & Planning Act 2016, will feature in our Compliance Workshops in 2017.