MNHQ here: Shelter's campaign for longer rental contracts

Sorry to thread-crash but does anyone have any advice for someone illegally evicted? (LL broke in and changed the locks after I complained to council residential environmental health about lack of essential repairs.)

Shelter campaigned for tenants to have choice - overlooking that the most vulnerable make bad choices and get evicted. Now they have backtracked a bit because it does cause homelessness.

Since any sensible landlord insists on seeing bank statements I imagine its still pretty easy to detect housing benefit claimants and discriminate against them.

I'd like to see a lot more social housing built and much larger taxes on second homes and empty homes, that would drive rents down. However with this government it isnt going to happen so you have to try and make rentals work.

Charlestrenet - but nearly every house I look at says 'no housing benefit'

I can find no evidence at all that Shelter campaigned to have LHA paid direct to tenants. The opposite in fact

Shelter’s research has found overwhelmingly that claimants would prefer to have their LHA paid directly to their landlord. This would help people with managing their nances and reduce their temptation to spend the LHA on paying off bills or other debts. It would also provide claimants with security so that they can ensure that rent is being paid and there is no chance of losing their home

Maybe shelter could come on to refute some of the allegations on here?
I have worked with them professionally in the past and they have been very well regarded.

Spew that bile, haters, zero stuffs given

Sorry to be an evil bastard landlord renting out a clean (after much low paid shit shovelling ) smart not london property, purchased from work. Go blub to HQ if you want me banned, plus all those others on here who also think the same as I do

This is exactly the sort of person who clearly has anger issues towards tenants and should not be a landlord.
When she first started posting, a long time ago she was 'advising' that landlords could enter properties regardless as long as 24hours notice given.
I (as a fellow landlord) very patiently explained the law to her.

It works abroad, it used to work here years ago, there is no reason why it could not here.
It could push out the hobby landlords which would be a good thing.

speye.wordpress.com/2017/02/08/social-landlords-to-more-than-double-rent-in-the-housing-white-paper/

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2595702-To-wonder-how-this-company-is-still-in-business

There needs to be a campaign to stop HAS using gas safety checksto bully control and harass tenants. Ive talked about it many times on here.

e.g. If Liberty Gas dont turn up to do a safety check an automatic text is sent to a tenant saying that they (LG) were unable to gain access.

Ive seen many many instances of this including a council that wrongfully forced entry after believing LGS lies. Not only did the tenant not get any compensation but the council STILL insists on using LG.

There was a recent post on Swale Heatings page saying that in a previous year a tenant was made to wait in over a week for a gas safety check due to no shows. Now before anyone says they could have arranged for someone else to be there.
a. LG insist on the tenant being there.
b. Would you really want someone this dishonest in your home when you are not there when they have already proved themselves to be incompetent bare faced liars?!

Where is Shelters campaign to stop shit like this?

Many BTL mortgages do not allow LL to rent to those in receipt of benefits, so that can be another factor in the difficulty of securing a tenancy for many.

I'm in Scotland & there is a scheme recently started in Glasgow where substandard private rentals are inspected by the council & the LL given a legal notice to improve it, or else forced to sell it to the housing association, who then do it up & rent it out. Lots of shitty rentals are being removed from the market and slum landlords.

The reason that HB no longer involves landlords is because so many of them were discriminating against HB claimants and also they were bitching about being liable for fraudulent claims - eg "oh I had no idea my tenant wasn't entitled so fuck you with your attempt to recover public funds" etc.

This has been successful, in general, particularly now that HB is now primarily a top up benefit ie one that is mostly claimed by working people, so many landlords don't know that it's being claimed and therefore can't discriminate unless the tenant is getting for eg JSA or ESA so more properties are available to more people.

I suppose main issue with this shift is whether or not we as a society are happy that six million private landlords, the majority of whom are renting to working people, are collectively netting around £11 billion a year every year from the tax payer.

And, alreadytaken, were Shelter really instrumental in the change in housing benefit going to tenants rather than LLs? They need their heads examining if that's the case. That one thing has probably been the biggest cause of homelessness since it's introduction.

Alargegarden - I think you've got it spot on. Benefit-claiming tenants find it very difficult to find housing as a combination of the rent no longer going to the LL and the Council insisting on waiting until bailiffs are sent before they can be classed as homeless. Get rid of that, which doubtless clogs up the court system and speed up the court system so it easier to get rid of problem tenants, and many, many more LLs would accept benefit claimants.

The Shelter proposal is indeed incoherent and woolly and I can't believe an organisation like that was prepared to put something so shoddily drawn up into the public domain.

Lonelytears I really feel for you. There is a massive amount of prejudice against single mothers, and especially against single mothers on any kind of benefits, whether disability related or not. Landlords and agencies will say all kinds of things like oh we would just be happier if there were two incomes but really we all know what they mean.

It must be so horrible to be living in a house that is in a state of disrepair - no one should have to put up with that.

Is there any way - any way at all - that you could borrow six months' rent up front from someone and then pay them back over time? Only I know that very often this can help sway an agency or landlord - even their own prejudices speak with a quieter tone than the clang of cold hard cash.

Spew that bile, haters, zero stuffs given.

Sorry to be an evil bastard landlord renting out a clean (after much low paid shit shovelling ) smart not london property, purchased from work. Go blub to HQ if you want me banned, plus all those others on here who also think the same as I do.

This is a really poorly thought out campaign by SHELTER. Far too many unanswered questions. There are arguments for and against the UK short term letting model. Just as there are arguments for and against the longer term model prevalent in Europe. All the implications of changes need looking at.
SHELTER need to address these and come up with a coherent, properly developed policy proposal. This looks like something dreamed up on the back of an envelope during the coffee break.

another thought - Shelter were wrong to make it so difficult for housing benefit to go direct to landlords. Benefit claimants would be more acceptable if it did.

Shelter is addressing the wrong issues. Fees need to be abolished so agents have no incentive to push tenants out. Revenge evictions need to be truly illegal - current law is so poor it is not preventing revenge evictions. Landlords need to be able to get out more rapidly tenants who cant pay/ raise drugs indoors and so on - that in itself would encourage them to offer longer tenancies. Currently it can take 44 weeks to evict, although that includes amateurs who get the paperwork wrong.

Perhaps the incentive for this should be a fast track eviction process.

Plenty of tenants dont WANT long tenancies, would be useless for student children. And can Shelter please address joint and several liability while they are at it - that should also be illegal where liability can be shown to lie with one person.

Long notice period don't actually help many tenants either as landlords want someone who can move in within a few weeks.

How so? Before 1988 tenants had security of tenure ie could stay as long as they liked barring sale, death of landlord, landlord needing home for themselves/family. It worked fine, just as it does in most other Western countries now. Why wouldn't it work here, now?

Got to say this seems ill thought out and probably unworkable.

The main thing is to stop unfit properties being rented out in the first place, given that in some areas people will take anything.

The tories blocked a bill that would have stopped it from happening

The 'you' is special btw, not you, foxes.

Actually, applying special's own logic that the tenant is responsible for a landlord providing a substandard property, surely the landlord is responsible for a tenant behaving in a substandard way? After all, there are plenty of decent tenants out there. If you choose to rent to someone who is an arsehole when you can quite easily, legally and at minimal cost find out if the tenant has convictions/ccjs etc and also if they can afford the rent or have ever defaulted on rental agreements before then surely if you get burnt it's your own fault for choosing to rent to someone who doesn't fit the bill?

What's that you say; it doesn't work like that? Funny, eh?

(Although thank you for providing us with the image of you cleaning up shit. That makes me happy.)

• doffing

Oh and I had a trashed house too, you commented on my thread that it was my fault for not doing inspections often enough, so no sympathy from me for your 'skanks' I am afraid.

Ah, lovely as ever Special . You need to let go of the bitterness and not jump on anyone not dodging their cap to landlords.

It is my opinion that some landlords do think that they are the holy grail of law on it when in fact they are hobby landlords who really should not be doing it at all.