You filled in the application. You had the references. Then the landlord saw your name, or heard your accent, or found out you didn't have a British passport, and the property suddenly became 'unavailable'. That is not bad luck. That is potentially unlawful discrimination, and the law gives you somewhere to go with it.
Right to rent checks were introduced by the Immigration Act 2014 with the stated aim of preventing illegal immigration, and they apply in England only. What they have done in practice is give some landlords cover for behaviour that was already illegal. Landlord surveys have repeatedly found that many landlords who avoid tenants without a UK passport do so because they fear civil penalties for getting the checks wrong. That misreads the law. The checks are mandatory for everyone, regardless of nationality. Applying them only to people who look or sound foreign is the violation.
This article sets out what right to rent checks are supposed to look like, where discrimination creeps in, what you can do when it does, and how Remedy Legal can help you take action.
What right to rent checks require landlords to do
The Home Office requires landlords in England to verify that every adult tenant has the legal right to live in the UK before a tenancy starts. That rule applies to every prospective tenant, without exception.
There are three approved methods for doing this:
- Home Office Online Service: For tenants with a digital immigration status, such as an eVisa or EU Settlement Scheme status, using a share code the tenant generates themselves.
- Identity Service Providers (IDSP): For British and Irish citizens who hold a valid passport, using government-certified digital identity verification software.
- Manual checks: Inspecting original documents in person or via live video for tenants who don't have a digital status.
Landlords who complete any of these correctly get what the Home Office calls a 'statutory excuse'. That means if it later turns out a tenant had no right to rent, the landlord won't face a civil penalty, provided the check was done properly.
The statutory excuse is the thing landlords most misunderstand. They think refusing non-British tenants protects them from fines. It doesn't. Using any of the three approved methods, for any tenant with any immigration status, achieves the same legal protection. Refusing someone because they don't have a British passport doesn't reduce a landlord's legal risk. It adds a discrimination claim on top.
How do right to rent checks lead to illegal discrimination?
The Equality Act 2010 prohibits discrimination in the provision of services and in housing on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, ethnic origin, and national origin. A landlord who checks only tenants with foreign-sounding names, or refuses to accept a valid share code, or asks only certain applicants to prove their status, is discriminating on grounds of race and nationality. That is unlawful regardless of whether they thought they were following immigration rules.
The pattern is predictable. A landlord sees a non-British name on an application and asks for 'additional documents' they never requested from other applicants. Or they say they 'prefer' tenants with a British passport. Or they simply stop responding once they realise the applicant will need to use the online verification service rather than handing over a physical passport. Each of these is discriminatory in practice, even if the landlord never uses an explicitly racist phrase.
Civil penalties for right to rent non-compliance rose sharply after the Home Office increased the maximum fines in 2024, which is part of why some landlords have become more risk-averse. The Home Office's answer to the resulting discrimination concerns is a new code of practice that takes effect on 1 October 2026, requiring equal treatment regardless of which verification method a tenant uses. Critics argue the code does not fix the underlying incentive, a system that nudges cautious landlords to avoid anyone whose paperwork looks complicated.
The code matters. But it doesn't change what the law already says. Under the Equality Act 2010, selective checking based on a protected characteristic has been unlawful since the checks were introduced.
What can a landlord not do under the Equality Act 2010?
To be specific about what is and isn't permitted:
Landlords cannot:
- Refuse to rent to someone because they don't have a British passport
- Apply checks only to tenants with foreign-sounding names or accents
- Ask for more documents from non-white applicants than from white applicants
- Decline to accept a valid share code and insist on a passport instead
- Treat someone's need to use the online verification service as grounds for rejection
Landlords must:
- Apply the same verification process to every adult tenant
- Accept all documents from the official GOV.UK approved lists
- Process applications from British citizens and foreign nationals through an equivalent procedure
The Home Office's own guidance makes this clear. The checks are not a filtering mechanism. They are an administrative process that every tenant goes through, and every compliant verification method carries equal legal weight.
If you were refused a tenancy and you have reason to believe your nationality, name, or skin colour was a factor, you have a potential claim under the Equality Act 2010. The burden of proof in discrimination cases works differently from most civil claims. If you can show facts that suggest discrimination occurred, the landlord must then demonstrate it didn't. You don't have to prove intent.
What to do if a landlord discriminated against you during right to rent checks
The first thing to do is document everything. Keep copies of emails, screenshots of messages, records of what you were told and when. If you were asked for documents that other applicants weren't asked for, make a note of that too. Evidence gathered at the time is worth far more than a recollection written weeks later.
Your options from there:
Report it to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The EHRC is the statutory regulator for the Equality Act 2010. It does not usually take up individual cases, but it investigates unlawful discrimination, and a report adds to the picture it builds of landlords and agents who break the law.
File a formal complaint with the letting agent's redress scheme. If the discrimination happened through an agent rather than a private landlord, the agent will be a member of either the Property Ombudsman or the Property Redress Scheme. A complaint there can result in a formal finding against the agent and, in some cases, compensation.
Bring a civil claim under the Equality Act 2010. This goes to the County Court, not a housing tribunal. You can claim compensation for financial loss and for injury to feelings. Injury to feelings awards follow the Vento bands, which for claims brought from April 2026 start at around £1,300 for less serious cases and rise well into five figures for the most serious, depending on the impact.
Write a formal letter before action. Before going to court, a letter that sets out the facts, the legal basis, and what you want puts the landlord on notice and often produces a response. Remedy Legal can help you draft that letter through its AI-drafted letter tool, referencing the specific provisions of the Equality Act 2010 that apply to your situation.
Don't let time slip. Equality Act claims in the County Court must be brought within six months of the discriminatory act.
Does having a foreign document automatically make right to rent checks harder?
No, and a landlord who tells you it does is wrong about the law.
The online Home Office service handles most cases that don't involve a British or Irish passport. If you have an eVisa or EU Settlement Scheme status, you generate a share code at gov.uk/view-prove-immigration-status, give it to the landlord, and they check it online in minutes. The process is faster than inspecting physical documents, not slower.
British and Irish citizens who don't have a passport can use a combination of documents from the GOV.UK list, such as a birth certificate together with proof of their National Insurance number. There is no requirement to hold a passport. A landlord who insists on one is either misinformed or finding a pretext.
Tenants with leave to remain now prove their right to rent through the same online service. Physical biometric residence permits have been replaced by eVisas, so instead of handing over a card you generate a share code, the landlord checks it against the Home Office database, and that gives them their statutory excuse. A manual document check still exists for the narrow group who cannot use the online service, but for most people the check now happens online.
The friction that some landlords claim exists in checking non-British documents is largely invented. The Home Office has made the online system available specifically to remove barriers. If a landlord tells you their process is too complicated to accommodate your documents, ask them to show you which GOV.UK guidance they're following. They probably can't.
How Remedy Legal helps tenants facing right to rent discrimination
Remedy Legal was built for situations where a renter knows something is wrong but doesn't know where to start. Right to rent discrimination is a good example. The legal framework is clear, but the path from 'I think I was discriminated against' to 'I filed a complaint and received a response' involves several steps most people haven't taken before.
Through Remedy's free instant situation assessment, you can share the key details of what happened and get a clear picture of your options, with no jargon and no paid consultation required. If a formal letter to the landlord or letting agent is the right move, Remedy can draft one referencing the Equality Act 2010 provisions that apply. If the route is an ombudsman complaint or a County Court claim, Remedy's filing support covers that too.
For tenants who want expert involvement, Remedy's top-tier plan includes a 30-minute consultation with a human expert and ongoing document review throughout the process. The no-win-no-fee model means you don't pay if the claim doesn't succeed.
Right to rent discrimination hits tenants at the first stage of getting a home. Remedy is set up to help you respond to that, from drafting the initial letter to preparing any evidence bundle needed for a formal complaint.
You can also read more about UK tenant rights and how to spot landlord violations and how to report a landlord to the council in related guides on the Remedy blog.
Right to rent checks discrimination against UK tenants is illegal, has been illegal since 2014, and is still happening at scale. A landlord who won't accept a share code, or who only asks certain applicants to prove their status, or who tells you their 'policy' requires a British passport is not following the law. They are breaking it.
If this happened to you, document what you have, act within six months, and don't assume the law is too complicated to use. Start with a free assessment from Remedy Legal: share the details of what happened on WhatsApp or through the platform, and Remedy will tell you exactly what you can do about it.
