To say about bloody time? No DSS landlords breaking the law.

[Whatisthisfuckery]

A judge has ruled that landlords and letting agents refusing to let to people on housing benefit is unlawful.

It’s about bloody time it was made clear that it is not acceptable to discriminate against people who are on benefits. Housing is not just a privilege for those who are employed and able to work.

Obviously this clarification in the court will not solve the housing crisis, for people on low incomes especially, and much more needs to be done to make sure people have access to benefits without lengthy waits that then create rent arrears etc, but it’s a step in the wright direction.

www.bbc.com/news/education-53391516

My insurance would be invalid if I rented out to DSS so not a chance that I will until major insurers change their policies.

And yes, I could get specialist insurance but that’s more expensive thus meaning I would need to increase my rent.

Whilst many will argue that it’s my cost to bare, most would be shocked to find out that most years I barely make a profit on my rental as I invest back into the property to ensure someone had a decent home to live in.

If they went back to the council paying HB etc direct to the landlords you may find some people would be more willing to look at renting to people on benefits

"Alternative payment arrangements", whereby the housing costs element is paid direct to the landlord, can be made under UC regs if the claimant is in arrears or has trouble managing their money. Similar arrangements can be made under HB, and some councils are happy to pay rent direct to a landlord from the start if that is specified in the agreement at the outset (that might even be in HB regs, I've never checked).

Some LL get screwed and there should be a way to stop this but a huge amount of LLs are making a fortune out of renters with vastly inflated rents, charges , rent increases etc etc certainly enough to pay a bit extra for proper landlord's insurance.

You could ban me from renting my home out.
It would sit empty then apart from occasional maintenance checks.
I'm not completely sure what the benefits of this would be.
I don't know all the ins and out of renting but I pay for a full rental service from an agency and they do know this stuff.
Most renters are just decent people as has been said and so are most landlords, some people like me are both at the same time.

This is of course a positive step. It was always discriminatory in that households with dependent children reliant on benefits are more likely to be headed by a single parent or a disabled parent or include a disabled child in the household composition. So it is correct that this is a form of indirect discrimination. Also now that universal credit has replaced housing benefit for most of the country, and given that millions of working families claim universal credit with many private renting due to restricted income, it has also already become difficult to police.

However, in practical terms there is a way to go. As others have said, at the point where prospective tenants hand over bank statements ie the credit checking phase, this will still be identified and people claiming financial assistance for housing will be rejected.

Really the problem isn't refusing people on benefit top ups (the majority of Hb/UC claimants of working age do actually work - we aren't talking about unemployed people here) but that private renting is so expensive that top ups are required, that there isn't an alternative for most on restricted income as public sector stock has been so eroded and that pricing and standards are largely unregulated. This is one little bit more of regulation. It is welcome, for sure. But as long as we're handing over £12 billion a year every year to private landlords to pay the rent they demand and asking very little from them in return, the tenants are always going to be caught in this and be disadvantaged.

@Wilmslow, by definition, a tenant who can't get a job won't get a job no matter how much effort they make.

Unfortunately I doubt it will help most. Tenants can be asked to prove they can afford the property. There will be loopholes.

@takesidesummer are you aware the goverment pays the money direct to claimant / tenant who then has to pay the landlord in the majority of cases

@Junglerum if you don't mind me asking can I ask who you got insurance with that accepts dss please I'm struggling to find any and how much do you pay a month (sorry if that's nosey)
I'm a landlord and currently uninsured

Op but credit checks are done on mpre than just steady income
They look at past. Issues good and bad , affordability bases on maybe dependents, sometimes having had no credit can make it difficult
Even a large income doesn't guarantee passing a credit check if you had some arrears etc several years before

I think that this all started ( LL not wanting DSS) many years ago - I was a single parent in rented property and the rent was paid direct to the LL. They then decided to allow the rent to be paid to the claimant and hoped they would then pay the rent, and of course in many cases they didn't, got into arrears and the LL suffered, despite the rent being paid. If it was a direct to the LL payment again it might be more acceptable (it might be now, I haven't rented for a long time).

@Alsohumam why so people stll blame thatcher for lack of council houses , subsequent goverments have had over 30 years to build more
Infact we probably do have built more than were ever sold bit not at the rate the population has grown on that time
But labour had years to build council houses , cant blame not catching up on thatcher all these years later

@nexus 63 not easy to get rent paid direct to landlords anymore not how the system works

It's a great start but many landlords will weasel their way way around it. I'm a carer to one of my children who has a disability with high needs round the clock. This classes me as unemployed though I get carers allowance. If the council had to provide the 24/7 care my child needs it would cost them an absolute fortune, yet I'm worth only £64 a week for caring with no break at all. I need to find somewhere to move asap as my landlord has figured out they can make more money turning this house into a HMO. I have excellent reference for the entire time I've rented since I left home at 18. That's not enough and I dont pass any income thresholds locally. I'm on the housing list and on a high banding due to the urgency and my daughters needs yet I'm still coming up as number 98-134 for each property that comes up with local housing associations. There is only 1-2 homes listed each week and often none. So what am I supposed to do? Always kept a clean well decorated home, paid rent on time etc I can't rent privately due to my child having a disability and I am so far from getting a home through an association. We have to wait until we are thrown out on the street by bailiffs. We are human beings. We dont deserve that. How would some of you Landlords like to wait day after day with your heart in your gut waiting for that bang on the door? Living with your home packed up so you can leave with your belongings when that day comes.? How do you think the kids feel? If someone can demonstrate a strong history that should be relevant. A relative that owns an estate agents in london has said the biggest headache they have is young proffesionals who live like antisocial slobs and disappear causing money lost in tracking them down and trying to get the money back. It's a certain person who will trash a home and they come in all classes and wealth levels.

The biggest problem we’ve found as LL who do rent to tenants on benefits is the benefits system itself. It can take months to process a claim and giving tenants advances on the UC just pushes them into a debt spiral. Benefits can get withdrawn or sanctioned and the LL and tenant can be left high and dry. One of our tenants got fouled up in the UC process and it took 10 months before the whole mess was sorted. We eventually got the arrears and rent paid directly to us. The tenant found the whole process confusing and we had to help them with paperwork.

@Notfeelinggreattoday they filter you out even prior to that. When you ring up and make the appointment to view, they'll ask how many tenants will be on the lease. If it's just one and you've got kids yeah sure they'll show you around but they won't rent to you. It's a long time since I was in that situation but the only way I got two nice places to rent was:

1. Lying. I said there would be two tenants, me and my partner. Went to look round on my own as fictional partner was off on a training course. When I went to sign the lease we had fictionally separated.
2. Pure fluke. Told them I was single, ofc they have to show you around, there was a couple there who the agent was schmoozing, I was left chatting to the guy putting in the kitchen, turns out he's pals with the landlord and put a word in.

So yeah I got lucky but really the bottom line is that we've shifted from state rented provision to private rented provision, it's costing us more than state would and it's unregulated. As you would expect, because a private provider can set their own criteria and why not.

It ridiculous that a tenant can not pay rent for a year and cant leave (not wont because if they do they will of made themselves intentionally homeless and the council wont house them) until a landlord gets bailiffs involved

This is bollocks. I've yet to hear of an LA homelessness officer who won't find someone intentionally homeless if they are evicted because of rent arrears, so a pound to a pinch of shit says they'll be found intentionally homeless anyway.

It's under S21 where a tenant is advised not to budge until there's a date for a bailiff warrant to be enforced.

And the only people responsible for the fact that it takes a year to get a possession order and a warrant are the government, for consistently underfunding the court service causing massive backlogs. It never used to take anything like a year.

@mencken

renting property is a business, not a public service. risk, return, etc. and profit. bit hard for some on here.

This. As a business you really are able to decide who to sell to. Those on benefits are not reliable payers. As insurers will tell you they are statistically more likely to cause damage.

I let my house to a Doctor, she only paid 9 months rent out of the 15 months she was there, when she left it was filthy and full of rubbish. What job people do or what they earn means nothing.

It doesn't take a test anyway.

Plus the council is just applying the law. Until you've got a court ordered eviction date you're not actually homeless. This is a good thing. Notice from a landlord is just that -, notice. It's notice that they intend to reassert control over the property. As a tenant, you do not have to leave. Those extra weeks can buy you valuable time on the bidding system and may just get you permanently housed. You are doing nothing illegal or in breach of contract and I for one am very glad that it is not yet possible to deprive someone of their home just by telling them to get out of it without oversight of the judicial system.

Sorry that should say it doesn't take a year anyway.

I completely agree the current position is discriminatory.

However, I also see the risk to the landlord of having a tenant on benefits if they need to sell/don't pay rent as they are more likely to sit it out for months or even a year to be made officially homeless, as well as the issues of non-direct payment of the housing benefit part of UC. This makes benefit payment households far less attractive for landlords and I don't see any moves to fix this.

It's the same for pets- I would take pets if I could take increased deposit because cats and dogs do sometimes cause damage, but given there is now a cap on deposits, it's not such an attractive option.

The whole marketplace is such a mish-mash and often these new regulations aren't put into place with any thought into other changes that could benefit the market, so everyone just does a work-around to save themselves from the worst excesses of other people's behaviour (both tenant and landlord).

If you make it too cheap to rent, and impossible to recover deposits, then people just prefer to have their properties standing empty- I have experienced this abroad where the damages done to the property exceeded the rental income for the year. No point in renting out, this won't solve the shortage of supply problem- that would require sustained social housing building programme (now would be an ideal time to put that in place, Boris), changes to the council criteria for being homeless so you don't force everyone to go to court (also unpleasant for the tenant), and ideally direct to landlord payments on the request of the tenant (as it makes a DSS tenant way more attractive). Pets- meh, I guess we'll have to put up with them (or charge a pet rent like they do in the US).

Instead there's just a lot of tinkering around the edges. I don't see what forcing small landlords out of the market will do in the absence of social housing, the bigger companies are not nicer or more understanding to DSS tenants whatsoever, nor do they keep all their properties in good repair.

This only gives people receiving benefits the right not to be discriminated against NOT the automatic right to rent any property they feel like. At the end of the day, a LL or an agency can still choose which of any number of applicants best suits their (unwritten) criteria and they don't have to justify their decision.
Presumably the onus would be on a person on benefits to prove they were discriminated against and how would they do that/ how many people would bother?

In many cases, it's the lending financial institution, rather than the landlord who refuse DSS tenants.

Until they release their grip, nothing will change.

@PerfectPenquins

It's a great start but many landlords will weasel their way way around it. I'm a carer to one of my children who has a disability with high needs round the clock. This classes me as unemployed though I get carers allowance. If the council had to provide the 24/7 care my child needs it would cost them an absolute fortune, yet I'm worth only £64 a week for caring with no break at all. I need to find somewhere to move asap as my landlord has figured out they can make more money turning this house into a HMO. I have excellent reference for the entire time I've rented since I left home at 18. That's not enough and I dont pass any income thresholds locally. I'm on the housing list and on a high banding due to the urgency and my daughters needs yet I'm still coming up as number 98-134 for each property that comes up with local housing associations. There is only 1-2 homes listed each week and often none. So what am I supposed to do? Always kept a clean well decorated home, paid rent on time etc I can't rent privately due to my child having a disability and I am so far from getting a home through an association. We have to wait until we are thrown out on the street by bailiffs. We are human beings. We dont deserve that. How would some of you Landlords like to wait day after day with your heart in your gut waiting for that bang on the door? Living with your home packed up so you can leave with your belongings when that day comes.? How do you think the kids feel? If someone can demonstrate a strong history that should be relevant. A relative that owns an estate agents in london has said the biggest headache they have is young proffesionals who live like antisocial slobs and disappear causing money lost in tracking them down and trying to get the money back. It's a certain person who will trash a home and they come in all classes and wealth levels.

How does having a disabled child stop you form private renting?