A date has been set in December for the hearing of a High Court challenge to the Government’s Right to Rent scheme on the basis it discriminates against foreign nationals.

The challenge has been launched by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) and will take place on the 18th and 19th of December. The JCWI is being supported by the Residential Landlords Association. A study by the RLA’s research arm PEARL found that as a result of the right to rent policy, 42 per cent of landlords are now less likely to rent to someone without a British passport for fear of prosecution for getting things wrong. Permission was granted for the JCWI to launch a judicial challenge of the policy in June. At the time, RLA Policy Director David Smith said: “Landlords will welcome the High Court decision to allow a judicial review of the Right to Rent policy which has put them in the impossible position of acting as untrained Border Police trying to ascertain who does and who does not have the right to be in the country. “This has created difficulties for many legitimate tenants as landlords are forced to play safe and only rent to those with a UK passport.

The announcement is an important step towards overturning a policy which the government’s own inspectorate had described as having yet to demonstrate its worth.” The announcement of the court hearing coincides with the RLA’s call for the Government to issue guidance as a matter of urgency on the rights that EU nationals will have to rent property both before and after the UK leaves the EU, including under a no deal Brexit. Analysis of Government data by the RLA PEARL suggests that 66 per cent of EU nationals (excluding those from the Republic of Ireland) live in private rented housing.

By Patrick Mooney, editor