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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think my friend is a benefits cheat

146 replies

ljwales · 04/04/2015 23:02

She has several buy to let properties that are all occupied by people in receipt of housing benefit.she regularly monitors the market and if the housing benefit will ever pay any more money for the properties she puts up the rent as she knows the tax payers will pay the increase. She's done this several times over the last few years, even though her costs have fallen massively with the interest rate drops!

OP posts:
EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 05/04/2015 07:13

Many private landlords don't rent to LHA tenants. The ones that do tend to put up with more hassle in the form of delays to payments, higher insurance premiums and deposit issues and they all, without exception, charge the maximum they are able to under LHA.
It's not ok, none of it is ok, but as long as their properties are in good order I can't get too angry with them.
Benefits claimants need private rentals and as most of them are closed to them those that provide them are providing a service.
We need more affordable housing and better rent controls which would change the dysfunctional rental market but it's top down that we need change. A few landlords reducing their rents means nothing. Most LHA is paid to working households so this isn't even responsible for much of the benefits bill at all.

Vivacia · 05/04/2015 07:13

You didn't ask whether your friend was admirable or ethical. I think the responses are because you asked whether your friend was a benefit cheat.

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 05/04/2015 07:14

Icimoi LHA rates are set at the lowest 30% of private rents so no, she's not charging more than she'd get with none benefit tenants.

Private renting is insane.

lougle · 05/04/2015 07:48

I'd like someone to explain how a landlord who only puts the rent up as much as LHA will pay is profiteering, given that to do so they must be charging up to 70% less than other landlords in the area?

Original poster
ljwales · 05/04/2015 07:56

No one privately would pay the rent she's charging for miserable little dilapidated studio flats.

OP posts:
AlpacaMyBags · 05/04/2015 08:00

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

shewept · 05/04/2015 08:04

The reason you are getting the responses you are is because of your OP. You call her a benefit cheat, she isn't a benefit cheat. She is doing what all landlords do. There was actually a programme on this week where the landlord said he rented to people with HB as he gets more for the properties than he gets privately.

Is it morally right? No i don't think it is. Does that make her a benefit cheat? No it doesn't.

Original poster
ljwales · 05/04/2015 08:08

Sorry I did mean to say "as bad as a benefits cheat".

I'm not sure how ll would not accept housing benefit? When I lost my job my ll had not idea I was getting HB.

The point is she deliberately buys scummy places to rent to HB recipients in order to cream off all she can from tax payers.

She does get far more than she would do privately so the system is obviously broken and the tenants put up with sub standard places with no matainace as they receive HB.

As you can tell she's a friend of a friend.

What was the show?

OP posts:
Ohmymg · 05/04/2015 08:10

I assume your friend has bought these properties outright or has buy to let mortgages?

She runs the risk of having to meet those costs if any properties become vacant- just like every other landlord.

Original poster
ljwales · 05/04/2015 08:13

She has managed to get them all okn btl mortgages.

Well she's never had a void period in her years of it as always buys with long term tenants. Do think she's going to become unstuck one day as they are all leasehold so could get a large bill in and she just spends the money she gets. She's also set up a private company to minimise the tax bill.

OP posts:
Arsenic · 05/04/2015 08:14

She's a bottom feeder. A profit-wringing, system-playing slum landlord.

They never attract the vitriol on MN that the unemployed or disabled do.

Arsenic · 05/04/2015 08:17

I'd like someone to explain how a landlord who only puts the rent up as much as LHA will pay is profiteering, given that to do so they must be charging up to 70% less than other landlords in the area?

Do you imagine that the 'properties' are similar to the top 70% of housing stock in the area lougle? Or even the best 99%?

shewept · 05/04/2015 08:17

It was on quite late, dh watches it and it was on in the bedroom. Called 'benefit landlords' or something. Will ask him when he gets up.

Many landlords refuse to take people on hb. If you are already in, they won't throw you out. As they probably don't know or (if they do) they know they are a good tenant. But lots of landlords don't allow people on it to apply.

ThinkIveBeenHacked · 05/04/2015 08:22

She is charging what the Govt deem an acceptable fee for the product she is providing.

Do you want her to charge 25 percent less as some sort of noble stance?

EhricLovesTheBhrothers · 05/04/2015 08:26

Most landlords won't rent to LHA tenants. It's completely different if you have a job when you start renting and then start claiming than if you try to find a flat without employment/a guarantor. Obviously they know you will be claiming LHA and most doors are closed.

WhiteConverseSkinnyJeans · 05/04/2015 08:31

She's not technically a cheat but it's bloody immoral

These sort of people are the true "benefits scroungers" of this country and an absolute scourge

TheWhiteRoad · 05/04/2015 08:33

How can she be a benefits cheat if she's not claiming benefits?

She is not behaving in a way that most people would fund particularly laudable but that's business I suppose. And she is operating within the law.

At least see rents to those claiming HB. Many LLs don't.

88blueshoes · 05/04/2015 08:33

Really surprised by some of the responses here. This may not be illegal, but it's certainly immoral and unethical. She's exploiting the system to get as much money as she possibly can whilst still staying just within the law.

Also shocked at comments that she's doing people on HB a favour by taking them at all! She's taking advantage of guaranteed rent underwritten by the taxpayer, what's not to like? If she's renting out downmarket studio flats then it's very unlikely she would get the same kind of security from private tenants.

She also knows that if she had private tenants they'd be more likely to question a rent increase and potentially move elsewhere.

Psipsina · 05/04/2015 08:33

Right. The government has made it very plain that this is acceptable behaviour from landlords, by encouraging the buy to let market in the first place (actually I'm not sure who encouraged that or made it such a vast problem, but someone did)

She is behaving within the guidelines afaik

However it IS very scummy behaviour to buy awful properties to let at market rates. That would be losing her my friendship to begin with. No one should have to live in a scummy property just because they are on benefit.

Cheating would be what my old landlady used to do - claiming HB direct from the council while also claiming it from her tenants. I do not know how she managed it but she was prosecuted in the end.

Absolutely atrocious. AND the accommodation was scummy.

shewept · 05/04/2015 08:39

She's taking advantage of guaranteed rent underwritten by the taxpayer, what's not to like?

It no more guaranteed than any other type of rental. People still get hb paid direct, not everyone hands it over to the LL. Also people get hb stopped just like people can loose their income. While I think she should be charging rent, according to what the property is worth, rather than based on how the tenant pays, its not guaranteed.

Psipsina · 05/04/2015 08:43

Fwiw I agree that buying to let is an unpleasant game in itself. Especially when people don't care much about the state of the place and just want to make money.

Renting privately on HB is a fine art - finding somewhere that isn't damp, filthy, noisy, falling down or infested with lecherous landlords is almost impossible, given the amount you are allowed to claim.

We clung to various places for a number of years despite the conditions, because they were simply the best we could get. In our last place much of what I owned went mouldy, I caught a potentially fatal illness when we first moved in, builders would frequently turn up and break our stuff/break windows/cut down trees I had planted, and swear at me, and I had to endure being groped by the LL on a fairly regular basis over the course of 6/7 years. He was a really nice guy apart from this, and the location was great, but still.

We are now in an owned property for the first time. I have nothing but pity for those who rent.

paxtecum · 05/04/2015 08:45

Capitalism can stink!

We have a weird system of HB that has facilitated the increase of house prices.
60 years ago a low paid manual worker could pay the rent on a three bed house, all the associated bills and feed a family on one wage alone.
Now that wage will barely cover the rent.

The Right To Buy and housing benefit have fucked us all over.

Your friend is a capitalist playing the system and we are paying.

As Arsenic said ' a bottom feeder'.

Arsenic · 05/04/2015 08:45

Thatcher deregulated the rental market and encouraged amateur LLs psip

Psipsina · 05/04/2015 08:48

Thanks, sounds about right.

Original poster
ljwales · 05/04/2015 08:52

That's exactly is a bottom feeder slum landlord. Im very Confused at the people saying she's providing a service and good on her, if she could get more money she would kick out the HB claimant s (most seem to have mental illness) and not give a fuck if they end up homeless.

She always goes on about how much she makes from btl, but I refuse to get involved with that as its for the most part highly unethical. As she's bought them all through a company if interest rates ever go up and she can't afford it anymore, she can just close the company and other people would have to pickup the losses while she walks away with the profit she's got every month.

OP posts:
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