Right to rent scheme for residential lettings - the Court of Appeal decision

In this appeal of a judicial review judgment in respect of the Right to Rent scheme it was held by the Court of Appeal that the High Court had erred in determining that the scheme was incompatible with article 14, in conjunction with article 8, of the European Convention on Human Rights. It was decided that whilst there was a discriminatory effect because of the scheme, whereby some landlords would prefer potential tenants with clear evidence of a right, the discriminatory effect was not on the scale decided at first instance, and when set against the legitimate aims of the scheme and its status as primary legislation, it was proportionate such that it was justified

The first instance judicial review judgment had declared that the right to rent scheme was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 4 with Article 8, and prevented the roll out of the scheme in its present form to Scotland and Wales. The Court of Appeal reversed this decision, so that the government did not have to take steps to address the incompatibility and is free to roll out the scheme. While the initial declaration of incompatibility did not affect the functioning of the scheme, such landlords were still obliged to carry out the right to rent checks, it would have meant that the government would eventually have had to revise the scheme to remove the incompatibility, or potentially abandon it if it could not function in a non-discriminatory manner.

Source: LexisNexis