That's hardly a general effect of all landlord-constraining frameworks. It's certainly not a tenant-favouring framework. If the law said landlords could not r

That's hardly a general effect of all landlord-constraining frameworks. It's certainly not a tenant-favouring framework. If the law said landlords could not require those kinds of references when advertising a tenancy, that would be a legal framework hostile to landlords without the reference problem you described. (Admittedly there would be unintended consequences. Maybe the reference problem would continue surreptitiously.)