To think renting as single mum is horrific

[Blueysmum12]

My bff is a single mum to two young boys. She works in a nursery and gets universal credits. She has a small dog who she got when she split with her husband and is her baby.

she’s lived in the same house for 6 years, rent paid every month on time etc.

the owner is selling their house and obviously she has to move. Between us we have rang 40 properties in this town and surrounding villages. Not one will accept her because she’s either on in universal credits and she has a dog.

the council rang today and said they suggest she takes anything and rehomes her dog because they will put her in a bnb for around 8 months.

I would have her dog, but I have a cat and a dog and 3 kids already, my husband isn’t keen.

I feel so bad for her. She’s lost weight, she looks an anxious mess.

:(

Isn’t her dog an emotional support animal? Think very carefully about that answer.

Yes, do think carefully, because landlords whose property is unsuitable for ANY dogs will not even consider her.

Single mum, two young children and found the same issue. My job is professional and I earn quite a bit but still was rejected or ghosted the moment I mentioned I was a single parent to two children.

I've always private rented too. I was actually fleeing domestic violence at the time and desperate to get away. The council eventually agreed to help me.

It's horrible it's like single parents are looked down upon and ostracised.

@QuietQuietBang £10000 worth of damage! Are you a poor judge of character or had you not met the tenants before renting your property because all tenants are scum anyway?

Then you are behaving illegally.

I don’t think it’s that, it’s more that landlords can be incredibly choosy now, and a child-free professional couple probably means less wear and tear.

OP it is awful.
So many landlords routinely break the law. Just so common.

It's likely the dog. What breed is it?

Can she team up with another single mum or woman and apply?

Sorry to stick my oar in but getting all improvements agreed with LL meticulously is what burned us at our last place. We did tons of DIY. Laid new floors, landscaping, gardening, putting down literally 5 tonnes new gravel in the drive, repairing doors, plumbing, lights, removing the Virginia creeper covering & damaging half the house, digging gravel filled trenches and constructing openings around air bricks to solve the damp problem …All communicated with landlord and 99% paid for by ourselves as he refused to contribute except to buy a tube of caulking here or reimburse us for the odd new door handle there. Inspections by the estate agent and landlord raved at how the house & garden had never looked better! What great tenants we were! Neighbours across the green would stop and compliment the flowers in the front Id planted and raised from seed. The two hundred bulbs I’d planted for spring, the flowering jasmine bush id unearthed from Ivy and resuscitated…and so on.

Guess what, we’d improved his property and so he decided make bank from all our hard work and sell a place we’d poured five years into making from neglected sad house into a cosy home. Section 21 on our door mat. Two months to vacate.

We are not making that mistake again. We know our tenancy agreement in and out and everything we do to improve within those parameters where we don’t explicitly need permission and even some where we can push boundaries… we are not saying a word about.

Why is it an awful thing to say?

People who do not pay for things with their own money generally have less respect for them.

Hence the trashed homes and streets you see on large estates.

Appreciate not everyone on benefits is like that but quite a large proportion of them are and so a LL will not want to take that risk with his very expensive asset.

Then when they have destroyed the place it costs thousands to evict them, with no chance of any compensation as they have not a dime to their name.

This is why a lot of LL will not accept DSS.

That’s got nothing to do with single parenthood though. Dogs can destroy the buggery out of houses.

She has two sons, the dog isn’t her baby it’s her dog. I’d be rejoining it to put my kids first

My job is professional and I earn quite a bit but still was rejected or ghosted the moment I mentioned I was a single parent to two children

Landlords like that deserve to be lied to. I would blatantly lie and say my DH was joining us.

People who do not pay for things with their own money generally have less respect for them

That's nonsense - I've heard many horror stories about high earner couples paying huge amounts of rent and absolutely trashing the place.

as a LL I would over look the ‘lie’

As a LL, I never overlooked lies and deceptions by tenants. More than half their lies and deceptions were easily detected at application stage ( some, simply by following up the references they provided). Their application was then refused.

Yes, hence my use of the word 'generally'

Lol. And when they ask for the fictional DHs, name, phone number, employer, employer reference contact & email/phone contact, national insurance number, photocopy of passport and proof right to rent, 6mos payslips,….are you going to buy a fake identity off the internet with all this and hope it passes the referencing agency’s government database checks? Anyone over 18 has to pass referencing even if not a named tenant but an occupier…

How strange then that council estates tend to be in a far worse state than private ones.

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but not all people who live on council estates are on benefits.
How closed minded are you really?

Ah, I see, to you, asI’m a landlord it must have been my fault somehow? As to being a judge of character, no, I didn’t meet the dog to judge how well-behaved it was.

The tenants were decent enough people (a family relocating from South America as the father was moving to be the CEO of an energy company here) but just with very different ideas to me about what was acceptable in terms of how to treat the house.

It really doesn’t take much to get to £10,000 in a house where each window had a £2,000 plantation shutter and the same stair and hall carpet ran up all five floors.

Yes but the post has said her friend is a great tenant and has good references from her previous LL. not telling the LL about the dog and secretly moving it in but keeping the property well maintained would prove that yes she ‘lied’ but is able to prove what a good tenant she is even with a dog. I said what I would do as a LL that I would overlook it as a dog is not just something to ‘get rid of’ like a sofa that’s too big to fit in a new property. It’s not the dogs fault. A responsible dog owner has trained their dog not to ruin anything. Mine never has. By the time LL (if ever) finds out she has one why would they have a problem if the property is clean and well looked after? I wouldn’t and many other wouldn’t too. The proof is in the pudding.

Not all 17 year olds crash their cars either but insurance companies treat them like they do.

It's call risk and mitigation.

I'm sorry but if you are taking a huge financial risk you have every right to be 'judgemental'.

Many BTL lenders won't permit the property to be let to tenants on benefits. (Benefit recipient includes some single parents)

<www.propertyreporter.co.uk/landlords/buy-to-let-mortgages-and-tenants-on-benefits.html>

Actually those councils that are keeping people in B&Bs are breaking policy, there was new legislation put in place a few years ago that stated anyone who goes into a B&B or hostel, especially those with children are only to be kept in there for upto 6 weeks, after which they the council are either bound to rehome you in a suitable temporary accommodation or release you from their care.

So who you gonna tell?

Unless you’ve paid thousands to repair damage caused by irresponsible people and their pets, I would reserve judgement for people who choose not to rent to these people

It’s lack of money not lack of respect. I might as well write how strange private estates are so unkempt compared to the gated £20m pound mansions…with a team of servants busying perfecting every blade of grass all day….those millionaires must have more respect.

It all costs money. How do you take stuff to a tip if no car? Any flowers/plants/gardening….more money! And if you’re a council tenant…hmpf good luck getting any repairs or maintenance done at all many are just government slum lords. And who gets their potholes fixed? Why the people on the multi-million pound homes on millionaires row who can call up their MP on his/her private line and after a bit of dick waving, their roads and pavements get repaired, but not those on the Council estate.

Are you thick or just very naive?

I ALWAYS followed up all references in person, because experience proved so many of them are fake, a pack of lies invented by the tenant. And in that real life conversation with a previous LL, the behaviour of the applicant, their children and any pets would be raised and discussed.