Fines will more than triple for landlords who rent properties to illegal migrants, in what the Home Office says is “the biggest shake-up of civil penalties” for almost a decade.   

Penalties for landlords will increase from £80 per lodger and £1,000 per occupier for a first breach to up to £5,000 per lodger and £10,000 per occupier.    

Repeat breaches will be levied at up to £10,000 per lodger and £20,000 per occupier, up from £500 and £3,000, respectively.   

The higher penalties will come in at the start of 2024, after fines were first introduced for these offences in 2014.  

Since 2018, landlords have been hit with over 320 civil penalties worth a total of £215,500.  

Minister for immigration Robert Jenrick says: “Making it harder for illegal migrants to work and operate in the UK is vital to deterring dangerous, unnecessary small boat crossings.  

“There is no excuse for not conducting the appropriate checks and those in breach will now face significantly tougher penalties.”  

The department points out that landlords should already be checking the eligibility of anyone they let a property to.   

It adds: “There are a number of ways to do this, which are not changing, including via a manual check of original documentation and a Home Office online checking system. The online check takes only five minutes.”  

The Home Office says the move follows the government’s crackdown on illegal working and renting after launching a taskforce and reintroducing data sharing with the financial sector to stop illegal migrants from accessing bank accounts earlier this year.