Black Country landlords facing £3,000 fines in bid to tackle immigration crisis

Wolverhampton, Walsall, Sandwell and Dudley, along with Birmingham, are part of a pilot scheme that sees landlords face the threat of legal action if they let a property to someone who has no right to be in Britain.

If they fail to conduct checks they already face fines of £1,000 per tenant and £80 per lodger, rising to £3,000 and £500 for repeated offences. The new scheme will introduce a five-year prison term.

And there were warnings today that the government has not given landlords and letting agents enough information as they plan to roll out measures to allow them to end tenancies for anyone who either entered the country illegally or whose right to stay has expired.

It came as French police figures suggested as many as seven in 10 migrants in Calais may be reaching the UK.

The Home Office was unable today to reveal how the pilot scheme in the Black Country is going and said it was 'currently the subject of an evaluation which will be published in due course'.

Communities Secretary Greg Clark said landlords will have to check a migrant's status in advance of agreeing a lease - something they are already required to do in the Black Country under the pilot scheme.

Failed asylum seekers will also lose financial support.

Around 10,000 still get a taxpayer-funded allowance of £36 a week, even though they have been told their application was rejected, because they are living in the UK with their families.

But landlords say they fear being made to act as border guards.

Lyndon Whitehouse, of Wednesfield-based L&A Lettings, said: "We are clear on what we have to do under the pilot scheme but have not yet been told enough about what the government is planning.

"It sounds as though we are meant to become like border guards and do the government's job for it in vetting people.

"We already have the embarrassment of having to check the immigration status of people who are obviously born and bred around here as well."

Mr Clark said: "We are determined to crack down on rogue landlords who make money out of illegal immigration - exploiting vulnerable people and undermining our immigration system.

"In future, landlords will be required to ensure that the people they rent their properties to are legally entitled to be in the country.

"We will also require them to meet their basic responsibilities as landlords, cracking down on those who rent out dangerous, dirty and overcrowded properties."

Dudley North Labour MP Ian Austin added: "The government is completely failing to get a grip. But if employers have to check the immigration status of their workers I don't see why landlords should not as well."