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

Housing benefit should be paid directly to the landlord to make sure it gets to the right people.

I understand landlords want the mortgage covered and then profit on top, but when your mortgage is way £600, why are they charging rent at £900+?

My mortgage company stipulates that’s, should I want to rent out my house, the minimum rent I can accept is 145% of the mortgage payment. That’s not the landlord’s choice and, as far I as I’ve seen from various lenders, fairly standard.

I can see both sides. A blanket “No DSS” is wrong but I’ve lived in places where other flats in the building were rented out and tenants on benefits seemed to cause the most headaches. That’s not to say that all benefit claimants default but most defaulters I’ve seen were in benefits. And the landlords couldn’t get rid of them without going to court because the councils told the tenants that if they left at the end of the notice period they’d been served, they would be deemed to have made themselves homeless and therefore not qualify for housing help.

Some landlords are shit, but others just want to be able to rent out their properties at the lowest risk so I can see where “no DSS” comes from. If I was letting out my flat is balk at a benefits claimant tenant, I’m afraid.

Babyroobs. Because I'm her carer classed as unemployed so I dont meet the income thresholds if my daughter was disabled I could work and though a single parent I might have a better chance at reaching the income threshold.

Basically the government want to make it as difficult as possible for private landlords so they all think it’s not worth the hassle and sell up...

Given that a fair few of the government are landlords themselves, I think that's unlikely.

And that would have grim consequences which no government would want to be considered responsible for: firstly, a massive increase in homelessness and secondly, a big increase in the number of properties on the market and a corresponding fall in house prices.

A big house price crash would be electoral suicide.

*wasnt disabled that should say

@Soubriquet

I will be happier when rent is capped

People shouldn’t have to pay £300+ more than the mortgage payments on the house

I understand landlords want the mortgage covered and then profit on top, but when your mortgage is way £600, why are they charging rent at £900+?

It’s ridiculous

That doesn't make sense. If a landlord owns a property outright they'd only be allowed to charge £300 regardless of the area or the true value of the property.

Nothing will really change. Credit checks etc will get around the issue indirectly. That's the reality of the world we live in and I don't think either of the two main political parties really give a shit.

@Whatisthisfuckery

I’ve no doubt the cards will be shuffled and restacked against benefit claimants and those on low incomes.

What I have never been able to understand is, in my case I’m on benefits due to disability so my income is steady. If I could pass a credit check on the same income if I was employed then why would my steady income be unacceptable?

Probably because the threshold for disability benefits can change.

Wasn’t there an uproar a few years back when there was an overhaul to the benefits system and people who were severely disabled were assessed as fit for work. (Which of course- they weren’t)

@PerfectPenquins I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. It is absolutely awful that you're being left like this. As you rightly point out you are saving the state an absolute fortune by caring for your child but you have been left hanging.

Have you been in touch with shelter at all? If you phone the helpline it is sometimes possible to get your own caseworker assigned. Also have you checked your local housing policy? It's a document you can download. Go through it with a fine toothed comb and challenge, challenge everything. Every decision they make, pull them up, quote their own policy at them, ring shelter for advice on how to do this best. You absolutely should be housed and not left to the tender mercies of the private renting sector.

It's a horrible situation, the worst, and I'm sorry you're facing it. I wish you all the best. x

I think the fact that LL now pay for referencing/credit checks works against people on benefits now.

A LL won't want to risk paying £30-£60 for a check which may be more likely to fail on criteria such as affordability.

If you make it too cheap to rent, and impossible to recover deposits, then people just prefer to have their properties standing empty

A canny government would take steps to discourage this by penalising people for leaving properties empty without good reason. 10x council tax on empty properties should do it.

DP's former landlord had a flat that had been empty for over 10 years. He was having a sulk because the council refused pp for converting a big 2-bed flat into 2 small one-bed flats, and the other property, a 3-bed house, he left empty in the hope his son would move into it. His son had no intention of moving anywhere near his dad!

So two properties that he left empty, that could have been homes for families in need, for no real reason. He didn't need the money, he had 13 other flats in that property and another big house elsewhere that was at least 6 flats. And he collected the rent in cash, which made us wonder how much of it the tax man knew about...

why so people stll blame thatcher for lack of council houses , subsequent goverments have had over 30 years to build more

In a nutshell, because the bulk of the revenue from council house sales goes to the Treasury, not to the local councils which would be building the new houses. Not only that, but Thatcher capped local councils' ability to borrow.

When local councils do manage to build houses despite lack of funds caused by the above, Right To Buy means the tenants can just buy them straight off the council at a huge discount.

Right to Buy rules undermining council efforts to boost housebuilding
www.local.gov.uk/about/news/right-buy-rules-undermining-council-efforts-boost-housebuilding

There's a valid question to be asked about why this wasn't reversed during the period New Labour was in power, although to be fair they would have had to get the changes through Parliament to make it happen in England. In Scotland and Wales, the devolved governments ended RTB.

NB Right To Buy began in 1980 so has existed for 40 years, not 30, and the Tories have been in power at Westminster for 27 of those years. This a Tory-made problem that New Labour didn't fix, and is a Tory-maintained problem today.

@zonkin

Nothing will really change. Credit checks etc will get around the issue indirectly. That's the reality of the world we live in and I don't think either of the two main political parties really give a shit.

Exactly, I have no mortgage on my home. I have no intention of charging anything less than market value for it.

I do rent to DSS but I’m not a bloody charity.

BTW this is another classic 'Shelter' fuckup (they are the housing charity that never housed anyone). The ruling does not set any legal precedent and may, just may mean that landlords in London will set rents beyond affordability for benefits claimants.

outside London rents are governed by market forces anyway - too pricey, no tenant. But Shelter never look beyond the tube map.

@Soubriquet

I will be happier when rent is capped

People shouldn’t have to pay £300+ more than the mortgage payments on the house

I understand landlords want the mortgage covered and then profit on top, but when your mortgage is way £600, why are they charging rent at £900+?

It’s ridiculous

Not ridiculous at all. You charge the market rate. So if you have a mansion in Mayfair with no mortgage do you think the rent should be £300?

People will get round it by choosing who they want to ‘let’ it to. I’m sure there’s more that one applicant interested in properties so it will be the landlords choice and they’ll pick the working person.

Obviously it means they won’t be able to adversity at No DSS but if DSS benefits apply the LL will simply not chose them.

I phoned up about a 2 bed house about 13 years ago and was told ‘We don’t accept children’ I was dumb founded!!

People shouldn’t have to pay £300+ more than the mortgage payments on the house

Or you could take out a very large mortgage, set very rapid repayments and charge a huge rent.
As I said earlier we are choosing to repay our mortgage rapidly currently so our tenant is paying less than our mortgage.
Mortgages aren't fixed like rents, you get to choose how long they last for and this impacts how much each monthly payment is.

@Notfeelinggreattoday we haven't had a socialist govt since before thatcher. So the issue there is twofold

1 the policies put in place then and carried out caused so much damage as to be incredibly difficult and expensive to reverse

2 none of the govts since then have had the political will to resolve the housing issues and I include "new labour" in that

it's costing us more than state would and it's unregulated. this is the part I struggle to understand non landlords and taxpayers supporting this system - it's costing taxpayers a fortune! Surely they would prefer lower social housing rates?

Given that a fair few of the government are landlords themselves, I think that's unlikely. this is a fact I repeat constantly on this topic.

It's shocking how many MPs - of all colours - are landlords and even property developers and then they're voting record shows them REPEATEDLY voting against anything which gives tenants more rights, more security.

Imo it's a conflict of interest and should be banned.

A canny government would take steps to discourage this by penalising people for leaving properties empty without good reason. 10x council tax on empty properties should do it would require a govt with a conscience too

Labour had a fucking massive mandate though. Blair got in on a landslide. Back in 1997 the guy could have made it law that every council in the country built a million houses and painted their arses blue and it would have got through. He didn't though, because it wasn't a priority for him. He was happy with the housing boom. He was happy that housing both bought and rented was becoming more expensive. He thought it was a wealth signifier. They all did. I remember attending council policy meetings and rising house prices were recognised as evidence that an area was on the up. It was desirable, an end to the dark days of hand to mouth deprived communities and a sign that people were earning more. What they didn't realise - any of them - was that the thwarted home owners would become the new rentier generation and that, year after year, as their incomes stagnated and their rents rose, the bill for the top up would spiral to the state it is now. £12 billion a year every year. To just literally hand over to landlords to pay rent on properties that, for the most part, are rented by working people who can't afford them. That's what Blair and co put in motion. And there is no excuse.

I'm a landlord (lady?). I have two properties let out, both to people on benefits at the moment. They're the best tenants I've ever had, not because they're on benefits, just because they're good tenants. I like people with children - more likely to stick around for schools etc, generally less into mad partying. I think anything that de-stigmatizes benefits is a good thing.

But this is t always about “greedy landlords”. When I became an accidental landlord a few years ago my mortgage lender would not allow tenants on benefits, it wasn’t my decision. I know MN loves the narrative that all landlords are rich selfish fat cats but they really aren’t. I inherited a small bungalow from my nana.

LinemanForTheCounty Thank you for taking the time to reply that's very helpful I haven't tried shelter but I will now. The only thing I have been told after requesting advice via the council housing and homeless team was that they can only allocate a certain amount of hours helping each person so to save as much as possible to wait until a court orders us out and then self refer again for help and she might be able to assist us in some way at that point. The unknown is the worst, I cant plan anything. I have three children in different schools, -two eldest with different disabilities so have different placements 40 miles apart that I do school run for. Its quite honestly scary and it keeps you up at night knowing I cant give the children the security of a roof over their heads and that's the worst feeling. Thanks again for your advice I need to get the fire back to fight for us which I will absolutely do.

Heartsonacake There is no such thing as a guaranteed income.
I think it is a good ruling - I've always thought it discriminatory when I've seen 'no DSS' on adverts. When I let my house out before I sold it, it just so happened that the first eligible applicants (no pets, good references) happened to be working but if they had had good references but were on DSS I would have been fine with that.

This is why women don't LTB.
Lack of access to safe housing after temporary accommodation refuge.
I'm quite sure plenty of people won't care but I hope they're not the same people condemning women for staying with violent men. The system is a gift for abusers. They sabotage their partner/spouse's employment and health. Job done. The woman is stuck because there's hardly any social housing but private landlords won't let to benefit tenants.

@PerfectPenquins that is appalling. So they're basically doing nothing for you right now, reading between the lines? Yes please do talk to shelter and also look at their policy. You may find it easier to get hold of by googling "discretionary housing policy" + name of your council. And write to your MP. They have staff that specifically deal with these issues who can send a strong letter. You're not wasting their time and it's what they're there for. If you've been given notice you should be classed as threatened homeless. In terms of allocation this can, briefly, be much better than priority (long list) or actual homeless (duty discharged by providing temp/private accommodation). However it is really stressful while it is going on, it's a nightmare. Stick to your guns and be firm that they have a duty to house you.