to think that it should be illegal to refuse potential tenants because they claim housing benefit???!!

[StuckInTheMiddleWithYou]

I mean, what happens if a person loses their job, does the landlord then have the righ to evict them???

Grrrrr.

Ok fair enough, maybe that's whay expat meant, but I still can't see what difference it makes. If you view the property as your business, then it is still yours. You don't want anyone making use of your business without paying you for it, and you don't want anyone vandalising or damaging your business.

In fact the business analogy makes it even more straightforward in a way, because no other business would be left so vulnerable by selling its services to someone who happened to be in receipt of HB. If I go and do a cart load of shopping in tesco, I have to pay my way whether I'm on HB or not. There is no added risk to the store if I am. There is an added risk to the landlord.

The difference is that if you think of the property as your home you have an emotional attachment to it (well I do anyway) whereas if the property is a business asset you don't. You won't care who you rent it to provided that they pay their rent and keep the house in good condition because all you are interested in is maximising your income. Renting the house is a business deal (I think ExPar's post is in response to Sancti's post).

I have had nothing but bad experiences with HB tenants so I am very aware of the risk.

"If a lanlord is still seeing the property he lets out as his home he really has no business in the business."

I am one of a HUGE number of people who rent out a property because of my own personal circumstances (moved in with fiance to marry but can't sell my own flat yet so renting it out).

My best friend is renting her property while she's abroad doing a phd. I know people who rent their property while abroad with the military.

I know somebody who inherited a home they want to live in but currently can't move to the area as there's no work so are renting it out until they retire.

Many landlords are not business people, we have properties we can't live in right now for whatever reason so we want somebody to live in it for us, we don't all have a huge float to cover non-payment of rent.. i personally only have a few months i could cover before i'd get in real trouble and have to borrow.

Can you actually get insurance for in case your tenant defaults on rent? Cos I couldn't find any that was remotely sensibly priced.

I rent out the granny flat in my house, so can hear noise, and share the garden with the tenant. Few years ago rented it to an acquaintance who was fine for about 18 months but then got mentally ill/started taking lots of drugs (not sure which came first). She'd been on benefits most of the time but then despite agreeing to move out didn't and didn't pay anything either.

Council couldn't help at all - and ended up paying her another 6 months HB in advance even after I'd told them the bailiffs were coming to evict her. Paying in advance has got to be the most stupid policy ever - they'll never see that money again!

Allegedly HB is paid to the tenant so landlords don't have to know and so can't discriminate against them, but you can't claim before moving and the landlord gets asked to fill in forms about how many rooms the place has, so it totally fails. If HB was paid efficiently and it couldn't get claimed back off me if the tenant turned out to have lied about something, I'd be delighted to have HB tenants. Just as well actually as the current one is on it!

You can take out landlords insurance, if your tenants are employed. There are companies listed if you Google the landlord forum. If the tenants default you get your rent paid as long as a rental agreement is in place, or until they are evicted, or normally up to 3 months I think. You also get assistance with the legals to chuck them out.
HB is to pay for people's rent, so I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be paid direct to the landlord, cutting out the middle man. That would take a lot less admin than expecting HB offices to monitor each and every HB tenant's copies of bank statements to make sure they've paid every month! (As suggested on the previous paid). Put it this way, if there is a need for more properties for people on HB, and government want to encourage landlords to let to HB tenants, that is one sure fire way to encourage them.
I will never, ever rent to HB tenants again. I know that will upset some, but that is the honest truth. I've lost far too much money as a result of my two brushes with HB tenants.

you can get insurance but they credit check the tentants and it depends on their income.

my current tenants are low earners and i have to pay two premiums as they'll only insure each for half the rent.

it's expensive, not worth it for the rent, but it also covers legal costs if i had to evict them for non-payment.

Thanks fluffx2 - now I've done all the legal stuff once, it would be much easier to do again and really not worth insuring for the £200 it cost. In fact it was only difficult the first time because of the postal strike.

And the tenant phoning 999 to claim harassment any time I put a letter through the door. Etc.
The police were great, luckily. Especially after the time she phoned them to complain I was breaching her human rights by asking her not to smoke weed in the house (the smoke went into my kitchen).

Current tenant is lovely and a bit obsessive about cleaning. And took great pains to assure me she'd applied for HB etc the minute she lost her job, and borrowed money to pay the rent as her benefits took 2 months to turn up - luckily I wasn't too bothered about a month of arrears so she could live off the money instead, but how do most people cope with that?

I'd like to see a legal requirement put in place for benefits to be paid within 21 days, and if you need to claim again within a year they should be reinstated within a week. They got such a system in place for FOI requests!

Minqq yes that is wrong, and I think the deposit scheme should be held by LL exactlys ame way.

We know rhtere's a chance we couod end up on HB when we next move so in order to attempt to persuade someone to take us (no HB friendly ll's ehre) we have saved a significant deposit worth 6 months rent, which we would offewr and accept a six month lease; that way LL is pretty much secured against significant loss IYSWIM.

There's no reason a HB tenant should be able to cause damage and get away with it, certainly not.

Equally though whilst I accept that there is probably greater risk with HVB much of that is related to who ends up on HB IYSWIM: you are more likely to get somoene with addiciton issues, MH problems, a no- responsibility ethoss that lets them get away with behaving how they want, thsoe factors making them unemployable. However, I think some LL's could ask'what palces this person on HB'- we're precariously balanced becuase we have a disabled child (well two), and Dh is a FT student after redundancy. But I can also show a very responsible last job, as can Dh, along with a tendenct toa ctually improve properties (with owners permission!)- heck when we moved in and the agent knew my degree studies were RE related you could see ehr eyes light up LOL, we're just not in the high risk bracket. So a few qaustions could easily establish us as something completely diffeent from the stereotype IYSWIM?

But whilst I would like LL's to ask more Q's, and that mortagge providers shouldn't be able to blanket block HB claimants, I also think tenant has a huge responsibility to provide security (council can help with that if needed, deposits are after all palced in separate accounts unlike the old days, evidence to council regularly of payment so that it is impossible for a tenant to withold more than one months at very worst- they don't pay they don't get, simple as. And LL's should be rewqarrded in some way, eg the CGT appraoch, so everyone has more security but every HB claimant can be judged for who and what they are rather thabn a mean assumption made. people assuming Dh and I are having a rough time becuase of some kind of laziness / fault / lack of responsibility are one of the biggest banes of my life ATM, and I do wish people would see the very many reasons one could end up tight and on benefits, and the human stories beind that.

Sancti yes people receive HB for different reasons. Some HB tenants are better than private ones and I see my property as a business (not originally bought for that purpose but that is a different matter)and I'd have your family any day. In fact I'd have any HB tenant if the risk was mitigated.