As part of a slew of measures to freeze illegal immigrants out of the economy, the Tories have announced tougher penalties for landlords who let out properties to those with no right to be in the country. This extension of the hostile environment could, however, simply worsen the lives of legitimate renters in an era where costs and competition for housing are increasing.

The plans are designed to make it harder to exist in the country without a right to be here, as well as punish those who exploit and facilitate illegal immigration. Under the proposals, fines for renting out properties unlawfully will rise from £80 per lodger and £1,000 per tenant for a first offence to up to £5,000 per lodger and £10,000 per tenant. Subsequent breaches will be up to £10,000 per lodger and £20,000 per tenant, up from £500 and £3,000 respectively.

The goal is to make it financially ruinous to support illegal migration. Ministers are worried that the current penalties aren’t being taken seriously enough. They feel that the relatively small punishments, as well as the low risk of enforcement, means that many rogue landlords price this in as the cost of doing business. Similar changes are proposed to deal with rogue employers who may collaborate with landlords and people smugglers to subvert migration law and exploit asylum seekers.

It’s right of the government to try to cauterise the issue in this way, but the risk is that the regulatory burden falls hard on genuine landlords, and in turn, is passed onto tenants. To avoid being caught out, those renting property will have to insist on proper identity checks for those renting their properties – and these come with a cost.

Tightening of rules over the last few years means the government requires more and more stringent checks on ID, especially for foreign renters. Though the Home Office provides a free way of checking, this requires administration time, and will often be outsourced and charged for by a lettings agency. Though these fees can’t be passed directly onto tenants, they are likely to be swept up in rent increases as landlords know the market will bear them.

Across the country, and especially in major cities, rents are rising rapidly and demand hugely outstrips supply. Earlier this year, London rents hit a record high, yet it is not uncommon for new properties to attract hundreds of enquiries and be off the market in days. Landlords know that their escalating costs can easily be converted into even higher rents. On the fringes, these costs combined with rising mortgages might push landlords to give up renting altogether.

At the same time, the extra burden of proving identity will mean landlords can be fussier with who they let to. Anyone whose identity cannot easily be verified may find themselves shunted to the bottom of the pile and struggling to obtain housing. Foreign nationals may be the obvious victims of this, but it could equally happen to Brits who lack easily verifiable forms of ID like passports. These will be disproportionately older and poorer renters.

These measures are framed around punishing rogue landlords, but in reality, they are outsourcing the enforcement of migration rules to landlords and businesses. This suits the government and saves its resources, but simply creates more regulatory interference for those who rent out properties, and their tenants.

Since the original fines were introduced in 2018, only 230 landlords have been punished. This is less than one a week when it is known that tens of thousands of people overstay visas each year. Research from the Pew Center suggests that there could be around 1.2 million undocumented migrants in the UK – likely meaning hundreds of thousands of landlords breaching the rules.

The Tories should instinctively be wary of the unintended consequences of regulation. Measures like this seem to do little to prevent illegal migration, nor do they seem to worry the ‘unscrupulous facilitators’ that the government are seeking to deter. Instead, it is likely to put further cost and complexity onto landlords, and therefore renters. With the rental market already overheated, it is likely the latter who will suffer the most.