To think it's disgusting the amount of landlords who won't accept DSS?

[7hup]

My friend is 36 and just been kicked out by her boyfriend because she had a mental breakdown and multiple suicide attempts .

She's just been released from hospital and has been given a B&B room as temporary accommodation.

She has to claim universal credit as she is in no fit state to work.

Council said if she can find private housing they will cover her first month's rent/deposit/fees.

No where takes housing benefit.

It's unfair.

There's no council accommodation and no private landlords will accept it.

She's 36. No children. No pets. Doesn't drink. Doesn't smoke. Is quiet and polite. Keeps to herself. Clean and tidy. She just needs a home :(

Its working people too. My Dsis has a kid and can't move out of my mums because she works only 16 hours because of her son so would receive housing benefit. So she can't move either.

Even on Spareroom. Co. UK in our area there are 674 rooms.

ONE takes DSS. And is dou le the price of similar rooms

It's so unfair :(

Wordthe

I think you are under the impression that council housing is cheap and the only people who get a council house are those that can’t afford to buy.

Friend who back in the early 80s thought we were mad buying a tiny studio flat when she and dh just went to the council and got given a 3 bedroom council house in a nice area.
Both were in ft employment and have always driven very nice cars and have never been short of money.
Over the years (apart from a short period of time in the early 90s) her rent has always exceeded our mortgage.

Atm her rent is £800 per month, our mortgage is around £500 and was for several years around £350 per month.

The problem is that every time the government impose new rulings that make it more expensive for a landlord to rent out places the tenants end up paying as the landlord just passes the rise onto the tenant.

Whilst some have given up others have come into the market and the utopia of masses of flats coming into the market and prices significantly falling has not appeared.

Prices are governed by how much rental income can be got so there is a price it will bottom out at and that is probably more than what someone waiting for a crash is prepared to pay.

estates5.warwickdc.gov.uk/HomeChoice2015/Property Don’t see properties here that would outstrip a mortgaged property in the same area
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/Warwick.html

Check up to £250k and you’ll find the first 3 properties at that price are ex council

As Tory’s have had more than a decade to make change

How do you work that out?

I've been catching up on here some very interesting discussions and difficult circumstances. What has quite irked me is that some people have said that accidental landlords should be outlawed. I was one such very reluctant landlord. I bought the house with a mortgage as a single person my wages then reduced significantly so I couldn't afford the mortgage well on my own. I put the house up for sale however they weren't selling well in the area and I still had a mortgage to pay. I moved out and lived with my partner so I wasn't needing to pay as much for additional bills then decided to try renting it out with very limited success and I had no choice but to inform my mortgage providers who upped the payment and gave me all sorts of terms and conditions including no DSS. My house was in an area with a transient population airport and hospital workers who would stay for a period of time then leave and spend the summer with their families in other countries so would leave without any notice with no way of contacting. I decided that I didn't want any house sharers any more as one person would leave and the others couldnt then pay the rent have also bashed landlords for this reason. Please be aware that I hated being a landlord because the rent merely covered the hiked up mortgage. Yet I still had to pay and did constantly for repairs redecoration etc.To those who have made assumptions that all landlords are the same and are out to victimise poor unsuspecting tenants. There are such things as accidental landlords, no I didn't want to be one and now thank goodness the house is sold. Please don't judge us all the same way, I have been on the receiving end of some pretty awful tennants. I had to pay for and to present myself in court because on paper I didn't qualify for legal aid. I represented myself against my tennants solicitor who had been fed a pack of lies. Luckily as somebody who keeps records for every aspect of their working life I had a nice thick wedge of paper to prove him wrong and won. I have a massive social conscience and helped my tenant find cheaper alternatives which he chose not to take. I was not a charity yet some people seem to think that the owners is entirely on the landlord to rent out to whoever comes along. I ended up 4000.00 in debt due to this man. Never again will I be a landlord. The whole system sucks starting with mortgage providers.

Badlad, how long have the Tory’s been in government and not in opposition?

Since the 2010 election.

Why should they have to rent to anyone that they don't want to? Most of my friend's who rent a property out are doing so out of necessity and don't make much, if any profit from it. They are allowed to be choosy about who they rent to.

My apologies badlad

wordthe - I dont want to do an attachment to earnings order. Thats a last resort if the tenant trashes the place or doesnt pay rent. If they comply with their contract there's no issue.

Why should i pay thousands of pounds to house someone who doesnt pay rent, or re-carpet and paint because they have trashed the place?

My overarching point is that housing is too important to be left to the whims of amateur buy-to-let landlords
people who just want to line their pockets and don't give a thought to the fact that in so doing they are participating in the dysfunction and decline of our housing market and by extension our society

a secure stable home is an essential foundation without which no one can function well

ivykaty

Comparing the first place 3 bed place in Kennilworth you can get for £170,000
With a 10% deposit and interest only payments you are looking at a mortgage with the Newbury Building Society interest only repayments of £349 per month for the first 3 years.

After the first 3 years it rises to £567 per month.

As opposed to council rent of £476.62 per month.
So less than £20.85 per week more after being £127 less per month for the previous 3 years.
If you moved in when you were 25 and died at 75 you would have spent £285974 in rent with nothing to show for it. That is if the rents don’t go up or you don’t live beyond 75 and you would still be living in the same place with no hope of moving.

In the meantime a 35 year interest only mortgage you would spend £230452.
Given house prices tend to double every 10 years you would be looking at a place worth over £1million. Whilst everything else has also gone up buying does give the option of moving or even going abroad. You are not tied down.

Friend’s council property is very cheap rent for what she has but given her and her dh could have bought when we did. They didn’t need a 3 bed house at the time.

If they had “slummed” it in a studio flat for a few months then made enough out of that to move to a 1 bedder for another 6 months etc. We had a 3 bed house within 3 years.
Given what her husband does it would have been easier and cheaper for them than it was for us.
Now we are getting snide comments about how lucky we have been because we are about to sell up and buy a bigger house in a different area and also a holiday home for cash and she is still paying rent.

House prices double every 10 years
yeah that's really sustainable isn't it

I’m struggling to find the 3 bedroomed house for £170k in Kenilworth- can you link to it please?

Sorry have just skimmed thread. There's a change that's either just been implemented/due to be very soon that will change housing benefit within UC. It will revert to the "old way" of DWP directly paying landlords, which should provide some security with some luck.

oliversmummy I’ve searched in a 3+miles radius for 3 bed properties from Kenilworth but can only find shared ownership social housing

@Villanellesproudmum The council can’t find them a property, my friend needs a wheelchair and she is too young for a bungalow (40)

This is active discrimination on disability grounds within the Equality Act. Disability is a protected characteristic within the EA. Adding age limits to bungalows that allow a fit & healthy 55 year old to dance into a flat whilst a wheelchair using 30-something is told to sod off isnt law, it's a guideline. Can be challenged too, medical evidence is very important in this.

simplysteve - well thats sensible - paying directly to the LL. It will mean bad tenants wont be able to blow it on drink/drugs or whatever.

wordthe - i still dont get why you think a LL with just a few properties is going to be any different to say a housing association - surely both will have a contract with the tenant which they will expect them to comply with and if they dont they will both serve eviction notices and try and recoup costs. I have seen some terrible council/housing assoc properties on TV being offered to tenants

Wordthe
Sustainable or not they do.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-68760796.html

3 bedroom flat

Please tell me where you purchased your crystal ball @Oliversmum

Slightly off topic but I thought this guardian article was interesting
www.theguardian.com/money/2019/jan/19/could-renting-without-huge-deposits-become-the-norm

And these are the changes which are proposed for fees
Cap on letting fees and deposits from June
Long-promised restrictions on the charges landlords and agents are allowed to levy on tenants in England and Wales are set to come into force on 1 June after the House of Lords approved the government’s Tenant Fees Bill. The bill still needs to be approved by the House of Commons and the rules will only apply to tenancies signed from 1 June. The new regulations will:

• Ban landlords and agents from charging for credit checks, inventories or references.

• Cap the cost of varying a tenancy at the tenant’s request (such as a name change) at £50, unless the landlord can show it cost them more.

• Cap the amount that tenants can be charged as security deposit at a sum equal to five weeks’ rent.

• Cap the amount tenants can be charged for a holding deposit at one week’s rent.

• Only allow “default fees” for the cost of replacing lost keys or recovering missed rent.

I didn’t purchase a crystal ball it is documented and people have looked at property going back to the early 20th century.

But how can you see into the future, I don't understand?

Only allow “default fees” for the cost of replacing lost keys or recovering missed rent.

can someone explain this to me please?

It will revert to the "old way" of DWP directly paying landlords, which should provide some security with some luck.

I doubt it because the landlords know that UC is often stopped or the award altered frequently due to the system's own errors and even less reliable than LHA under the old system.

Yes. UC is an abomination. My point was more the cash "should" go direct to the LL rather than to claimant who then spends on something and rent doesn't get paid. UC scares the living shit out of me.