To think that private sector landlords should not be allowed to charge exhorbitant rents to those on benefits

[therehastobemore]

Just watching the news about benefit caps and i have to voice this.

The cost of private rental in this area is astronomical. FWIW we don't rent we own our house but we are struggling and have considered selling up and renting but couldn't afford the rental. I am not talking about our situation here.

My husband is a builder and the other week went to price a job for a landlord, he wanted his house "toshed over" and brought up to standard as cheaply as possible. His long term tennant was moving out. Single mother with six children, she was on benefits (this is not an assumption, my husband chatted to her). DP said the place was in a poor state or repair and that no way would he want to pay the £900, yes, £900 a month that this woman was being charged. This woman said she struggled to get the landlord to make repairs. I have been in that situation years back and the rental is always over and above what woudl be charged otherwise.

The point being that no way could this land lord have rented this out to folk who were paying out of their own pockets, but because this woman was on benefits and needed somewhere to live he could pretty much charge what he liked so long as a minimum standard is met.

This is a massive drain on the tax payer. Inscrupulous landlords charging maximum rents for properties and the tax payer is paying for it. Never mind that people on benefits through no fault of their own are having to live in substandard conditions.

Just how much is being payed out in housing benefits where the properties are not worth the rent that is being paid???

I rent out a property in the South east - £900 for a 3 bedroom big bungalow....if it wasnt worth that rental I wouldnt get it! I have to say, I dont rent to tenants on housing benefits as the council muck LL's about and make them wait ages for their money.

What's in it for a LL?? Erm, getting a mortgage paid and an investment/pension for the future - well, that's why I have a rental property anyway.

My experiences with hb is that the tenants I used to have in there- they got an allowance per month deemed on how many bedrooms etc they needed and if the rental came in at anymore they have to top it up themselves....I find it hard to believe that they would pay 100% of a way overthe top rental price anyway TBH!

You may find it hard to believe but they often have no choice due to the amount of properties available to them.

Yes, I can imagine some private renters paying top dollar but I am saying I am amazed the council pay those rates...in my area they are pretty clued up and strict on the amount they will pay up to.

DH is a landlord and he has a HB tenant. He's not overcharging.

The council don't pay those amounts. The maximum amount they can pay is fixed. In my London Lha it is 204 weekly for 2 bed based on lowest 25 percent property prices. Any extra the tenant has to pay.

Nailak - yep that is what I was trying to say, you just worded it better!

It's not about people coming on here and saying they are asking fair rents who are being criticised - it's people charging extortionate rents that push up prices generally and anyone renting on a low wage or benefits suffers because they have to pay the difference if the HB will not meet it in full. Tenants do not have a choice of properties for rent in an area - they are restricted by all sorts of other factors. And there is competition for good properties, near good schools, etc.

That is why rents should be capped and the landlords legally obliged to only charge a certain amount. However, the Tories are unlikely to do that as they prefer to screw the poor

But I dont see how that would work. A couple of years ago I paid quite a lot of money for my property to be refurbed.......so, I dont see why my 3 bedroom bungalow should be rented at the same price as fred's down the road whose property is quite frankly a bit shitty and in need to some work.

if prices were capped (obv depending on how they were capped) no LL's would bother doing anything to the property, they would all be bloody awful and then no doubt people would come on here moaning about private ll's and what a dreadful state they let their properties out in.

Having said that, I have never overcharged, always charge my rental based on the advise I am given by my agency so I am certainly not screwing the poor!

Of course, private landlords should let people just stay there for less than the market worth. Why the fuck not,

I'm allready on here moaning about private landlords and the state of the properties, so the only difference is I would be paying less while complaining.

all down to supply and demand. its a business and entitled to charge what they can get. does not mean they have no conscience

It is called supply and demand and is pretty central to the workings of a capitalist economy.

most Buy to let mortgages state that they are not to be rented to HB tenants
It is very very difficult to find a private rental property that is willing to house to anyone on benefits, but the ones that do know that as the tenant isn't the one paying they can get away with charging more.

The rent is assessed by the fair rents commission and the council are also meant to assess the property and make a comparison against similar properties in the area.

If the landlord refuses to lower the rent however the tenant is then faced with the possibility of struggling to find somewhere else willing to house them or pay the rest of the rent themselves.

Coccyx, of course. If people ae willing to pay the rent that makes the property worth the price being asked I struggle to understand why a landlord who is in the business to make money should suddenly treat it all like a charity. It is his or her investment, it might be his wage, his pension. Why should he take a cut in that because his tenant might be on HB?!

I think you should blame the property market and high mortgage costs, rather than landlords per se. Granted, there are some bad ones.

I am a landlord. There is a mortgage on the house we are letting. No matter how I do the sums, rent needs to cover mortgage costs, insurance costs, agents fees (managed let), gas security certificate once a year, and there is at least ONE repair per month that we need to pay out for. Every time the tenant calls and ask for a repair person to come out and screw in a screw, it cost me £45 plus vat. I am not renting out the house for profits, but as a deed of necessity.

As I said, it is landlords who charge extortionate rents and don't do repairs, which the OP has given an example of, who are being criticised, not people who charge fair rents and renovate their properties.

If lots of people are losing their jobs and HB isn' paying out for hight rents anymore, rents will come down, so will landlords profits.

Funny isn't it, how everyone likes the idea of the tenant being squeezed, especially if they are on benefits it seems, but if the landlord is - legally obliged to charge a fair rent and do repairs - ooh that's just wrong.

It all started when houses started to be called "properties" thereby subtly changing from a basic human need, to an asset.
And Right to Buy turned ordinary people into amateur landlords, convinced that it would be easy money.
In a way I am glad that you can't make your fortune simply by your ability to secure a mortgage any more.
Can we live in houses again now please?
And can we address the mahoosive housing crisis that we have been facing now for some time? Because it aint going away.

I really would like to know how much has been wasted over the years on this whole cycle of social housing shortage and housing benefit claiming.

Council house gets sold = less affordable social housing.
Buyer of ex social housing goes on to buy other properties:
Rents those properties for exorbitant amounts to -
Council tenants who cannot get decent social housing because they have all been brought.
Tax payer pays off subsequent mortgage(s) for landlord/home owner

Surely the answer is to provide more social housing with reasonable rents, and stop the private ownership of council properties?

yes, it is.

But then how would amateur property developers get rich??

How indeed.

Our landlord charges exhorbitant rents because everybody else does. He doesn't know we receive HB towards our rent so that isn't the reason why he charges so much, he isn't bumping it up iyswim.

Northern Wreck, i totally agree with your post regarding "properties". I went to price a job with my hubby last year and we met a lovely lady who was from france. She used to live in an area of france popular with English second home owners - she said that her and the locals could not get over these people referring to the houses as "properties", she quoted them as saying "ive had XYZ done to my Property" not "ive had XYZ done to my home" and of course along with those comments was the attitude of people to where people live.

I also agree 100% with those who say the council houses should never have been sold off.

More agreement, with those who say that it is the property market itself that has pushed up the prices, and i do feel that landlords will take advantage of the fact that less and less people can afford to buy and push their prices up accordinglly.

I do not for one minute think that all landlords are sharks either, but i am not niave and i also recognise that there are sharks out there and it seems to me that they see HB tennants as an easy ride. For those who point out that Buy to let mortgages wont allow rental to HB tennants, then maybe these people have no mortgages on the property anymore and after rates and repairs it is all profit. The thing is, if you are a landlord, you are in it for profit, you are not a charity and you are perfectly entitled to your profit, it is your investment ater all, but In terms of having sympathy for landlords who are only barely covering their mortgages and rates on these properties that will become your pension fund or nest egg in the future, i may just save my sympathies for families who, through no fault of their own cannot afford one home, and then have to rent from landlords who are less than altruistic.

I have friends who are landlords and they are lovely people and very aware and keen to provide what is fair to their tennants, private tennants i think, but at the end of the day, they are not a houseing charity, they are looking to make a profit.

To be fair, i recognise also that the majority of landlords are business people and will charge the premium that their property is worth in the current market. But there ARE sharks and i do feel that society as a whole does tend to care for the Haves rather than the Have nots.

Just saying :)

As for what is paid out and what isnt, i dont pretend to know and am just going by what the woman i referred to in my OP told my DP and other hearsay i have come across.

If it's such an easy way to get rich, why are you all not becoming a landlord instead of moaning about these greedy landlords charging the earth?

It's just bollocks really. LL cannot simply charge what they want. There's a market rate and as many others have pointed out, HB is set BELOW the market rate.

In addition you'd be amazed at the types of people who rent and what they do to the properties. You think they all move out and leave it pristine? Many trash the place before they disappear into the night. Good luck finding them.

If they skip rent, that's thousands already in legal fees to get them evicted.

If the tenant is paid HB, you have to pray they will pay you ontime every month rather than come up with some sorry sob story about how they needed the cash for their latest problem.

If the council pays you direct then they can later simply demand the money from the landlord if it turns out the tenant wasn't entitled to it or as much. Good luck chasing the tenant who doesn't give a shit.

And thats before you take into account the costs which some of you seem utterly oblivious to like mortgage, insurance, certificates, repairs.

But hey, just blame the landlord who at least is trying to invest in his own future just because he's trying to rent a house to a HB person at less than the market rate. The money grabber! Let's just force him to rent it out at £0 per month. I mean....why charge the poor old taxpayer at all eh?

This is all one big circle
Starting and ending with slum landlords and going via social housing, which should be the solution, but then people forget why they were built and just see the pound signs, sell them, wheel turns once more

niceguy - it hardly seems worth renting out your property at all, makes me wonder why they bother