Under the new rules, landlords now need to see an official document of the potential tenant in the form of a passport or a biometric residence permit. However, when this is not possible, they can request a check on the ‘right to rent’ tool on the government website. Landlords who fail to carry out these checks will be fined £3,000.

The new mandatory rules, which fall under the Immigration Act 2014, were put in place in order to stop illegal migrants from renting.

“For us to be implementing rules that make it harder to be a student in the UK is actually damaging the sustainability of our higher education institutions”

However, they are thought to be encouraging landlords to rent their houses exclusively to British nationals instead. The scheme is currently piloting in the West Midlands, but is expected to roll out across the country.

According to a survey by JCWI, as reported in The Independent, tenants may now be charged an extra £100 in administration fees or discriminated against because they are non-British.

This scheme has also spurred concern that there may be potential repercussions in the UK’s international student community.

Alexander Hilton, Director of Generation Rent; an organisation which, according to its website, “campaigns for professionally managed, secure, decent and affordable homes in sustainable communities,” said it could ultimately damage the UK’s education system.

“Students are the focus of all sorts of scams from landlords and letting agents, largely because they usually rent a home for less than a year,” Hilton told The PIE News.

“Britain is the second largest exporter of higher education in the world,” he continued. “This is good business for us, this is funding our higher education establishments, and for us to be implementing rules that make it harder to be a student in the UK is actually damaging not just an area of business for us, but the sustainability of our higher education institutions.”

Hilton said he has already seen cases of discrimination happening through the pilot scheme.

“A colleague of mine is keeping closely in touch with the pilot area, and I saw one example of a couple where a woman was told that rooms were not available to view when her partner, who didn’t have a foreign accent, was able to view those same places,” he said.

“By implementing these rules, they are not going to catch one single illegal immigrant, they’re going to drive illegal immigrants into illegal tenancies where they’ll be even further exploited,” he warned.