Court case: Single mother v letting agent - refusal to let to benefit claimant

[troubedownmill]

Not sure if this is in right section - please advise!

A single mother is taking a letting agent to court with a claim of indirect discrimination because they refused to let to her because she claimed housing benefit.

“Although the receipt of benefits is not one of the protected characteristics as set out in the Equality Act 2010, 2 the Act also protects against indirect discrimination. Indirect discrimination occurs where a policy, which is not discriminatory in itself, is likely to impact disproportionately on people who are protected under the 2010 Act.3 So; for example, if Housing Benefit claimants are predominantly female or from an ethnic minority group, a refusal to let to Housing Benefit claimants might amount to indirect discrimination against these groups with protected characteristics.” (quoted from “Can private landlords refuse to let to Housing Benefit claimants?” House of Commons Briefing Paper Number 7008, 1 November 2016)

Statistics obtained by her MP from the Department of Work and Pensions prove that single women constitute more than 50% of people that claim housing benefit. Her argument is therefor that Housing Benefit claimants are predominantly female and a refusal to let to Housing Benefit claimants amounts to indirect discrimination.

More significantly, females tend to have a more significant caring role than men. As of February 2016, 63% of HB claimants with children (including single men, single women and couples) are single women; 94% of single claimants with children are women. This caring responsibility means that single mums often have to take lower paid part time work and therefor are reliant on housing benefit to house their family. A key feature of the court claim is that refusing to let to HB claimants impacts disproportionately on a group who are reliant on HB.

There has been plenty of recent press coverage about how the private rented sector is increasingly turning its back on those reliant on HB.

Verging on the offensive are the ill informed comments that use words like "scum" and "lazy" to describe HB claimants. The comments fail to acknowledge that many benefit claimants are people who do have jobs, work hard and are top rate tenants. It would be interesting to see an analysis of what types of tenants prove to be problem tenants - I suggest that single mothers on HB would form a minority group compared to single men with no caring responsibilities and couples.

If this case is successful then not only will it benefit single women, it could also benefit other groups that are protected by the equality act, in particular disabled people, who, again, due to their circumstances often find themselves reliant on HB and therefor also victims of landlords "no benefit" practice

Angel what would happen if say 2 months into a 6 month rental contract your tenant lost their job and had to claim hb then?

Why? Because women are more likely to be HB claimants than men. More women are less likely to have a job due to childcare commitments. Hell, even the job centre doesn't expect a woman to have a job until her children are a certain age, and even then she's only expected to find part time work.

No pets is a different matter entirely. Pets are not compulsory, having somewhere to live is.

What about assistance animals though?

I asked that question further up notstopped. The ll and the prospective one haven't answered.

Given that HB is paid to claimants precisely so that they don't have to tell LLs they claim, what duty do landlords have to check regularly to see if a tenant is claiming any benefits, or conversely what obligations do tenants have to tell LLs?

I have a specialist insurer and mortgage which don't object to benefits as long as someone is working when they move in, so I don't know about the wider duty to share info.

It did strike me as extremely odd that all communications from DWP about benefits say you don't have to tell LLs or anyone and HB is paid to you so your LL doesn't need to know, but then they wrote to me asking about the configuration of my granny flat so they knew how much HB to pay my tenant! Luckily I knew she'd been laid off and was claiming and didn't mind.

Do they say they don't have to tell their landlord? Is that standard DWP practice? With all this fuss I can see that being changed...

it changed several years ago. Used to be hb went straight to ll. Hb tenants were finding it hard to rent.
So then the wording on the forms changed asking do you want us to contact the ll.
It won't revert back because of universal credit. Everything will be paid together so you won't know if its tax credits or housing benefit.
So what you going to say no to universal credit tenants?

I have always wondered if this would be indirect discrimination. Really the insurance companies should also be taken to court for indirect discrimination also. I would love to see what evidence they have that people claiming benefits are more likely to wreck houses than working people? My partner and I are both degree educated and were working full time, I went on maternity leave and my partner lost his job when his contract ended and couldn't find another job. Without that HB we would have been homeless. The first bill we paid each month (and still pay now he's back at work) is rent! It's our most important bill and always will be. Our house is clean and we look after our garden (grow our own veg don't you know!). However, statistically for a while we were those 'scummy benefit claimants'.

Oh that's a whole level i hadn't thought of. I will be switching to UC at some point soon I expect, but I don't claim any housing benefit at all.

One problem is a fear that a private tenancy can be used as a short cut to social housing. Someone takes on a tenancy, then fail to pay rent. The LL spends a fortune on eviction proceedings but the tenant hangs on till the bailiffs arrive, and can then go straight to the Council and apply for emergency housing.

No matter if the HB money has been frittered on other things, the LL is seriously out of pocket and the tenant jumps the housing queue.

Obviously this is not everyone, however it makes it safer to rent to people without children.

The solution might be for Housing Associations or similar to take on tenancies and sublet to families. This way the LL is protected and the HA will have more experience in working with and supporting any problem minority.

Well they won't say 'no' to benefit claimants, just 'yes' to a working tenant maybe!?

If you have 3 or 4 people interested in one property you can only take one!

I've been fighting off homelessness (and by extension the loss of my children, who would be taken in by their well off but unpleasant dad, possibly) for years now. Glad this is going to court.

Good, I hope she wins. Lots of LL use the excuse that their lender won't allow it either, despite it being a minority of lenders now that stipulate this.

I think that's when this will change. When UC comes into force across the country. When ll's start having issues finding tenants beucase tenants, even working ones are on UC. There's only so many single working people who don't require top ups. When all these are housed, you have a shit load of empty properties because the rest are on UC. That's when the ll's will stand up against their lenders and insurers and say hang on a minute. And suddenly the unsuitable tenants will be welcomed with open arms.

Problem is housing costs though.... too expensive to buy so working professionals are forced into rentals. Take them out of the equation and then you have empty houses....

Notcitruis, would you mind either posting here or PM me the names of your insurer & mortgage provider? I'm in the process of taking out BTL mortgage & would like to be able to avoid the 'no HB' clause if possible, but have no clue who to approach for this. Thanks.

@Taylor22, I’m not sure I have any sympathy for your assertion “I think you're grossly exaggerating how much profit ll make on rented properties. By changing insurance many wouldn't just see a loss in profit. They'd be in the red.“ Ultimately you may be right that the issue is with the lenders and insurers. However landlords who buy to let do this as an investment, not out of any moral obligation to provide accommodation. As it stands this is not an ethically sound investment and those that invest this way compound the problem that it creates.

This could be rectified by those buying to let doing so with an ethical business plan and use lenders and insurers that support HB claimants. If that means that their business plan is not viable then they should invest elsewhere. I’m not sure that claiming it’s too expensive to be moral justifies acting immorally. Maybe then the unethical lenders and insurers would change their ways too.

Simply, if the government wants the private rented sector to provide the bulk of housing including for those in receipt of benefits, then the government needs to fix the situation, it needs to impose upon landlords a requirement to let to all.

@NotStoppedAllDay “We are set to become landlords soon ourselves. After restoring/decorating a house I'm not sure I'd want it modified in anyway” um, what’s that got to do with it. Unless you are suggesting HB claimants are, to use the words of those that read the gutter press “scum” and “lazy” and all they do is trash the places they rent. I refer you to Faithless12’s comment about teachers and other professionals renting and AndWhat’s comments about the single mothers on HB she knows.

@angledelightedme “she will lose” – I’m curious to know why you think this. To quote a solicitor who reviewed the court papers “your claim is very well put together and there is certainly good merit in your contention that a policy of not renting properties to housing benefit recipients is potentially indirectly discriminatory on the grounds of sex on the basis that women are more likely to be in receipt of housing benefit”

The bottom line is the housing market is skewed unfavourably away from those who are least able to counteract this skew. The current BTL market just continues to compound the skew. A recent BBC news item started “A BBC investigation has found landlords are more likely to accept people with pets than people on benefits. Of the 11,000 properties looked at on SpareRoom.com, only a few hundred said benefit claimants were welcome. Campaigners are pushing for a change in the law making it illegal to discriminate in this way.”

The law needs to change, this case hopes to help that happen.

trouble I meant ramps etc due to disability ( but I'd happily work with them to make changes) and flaps or gates due to animals!

And the house in the area we have could quite well get trashed by 'benefit scum' as you call them.... or students

Sorry for the late reply. Just to clarify I pay more for my mortgage to give flexibility as to who I have in the house - except it still will not let me have people who are unemployed or living solely of benefits. However, insurance is a separate thing and costs can be huge depending on who is in the house. Having two working people with no children and no benefits is the cheapest option, followed by one worker and one stay at home spouse (no children). It adds about 150 per year to add one child (still assuming no benefits). Add some housing benefit etc and the rate goes up more than double. I cannot pass this cost on to the tennant so I am stuck and have to say no benefits.

What happens usually when the house is to be let, I have viewings then the agents presents me with 3-4 tennant choices (they have weeded some out). I try to pick someone who seems most in need, whilst still being able to make a profit, but most of the time it ends up being a couple who are both in work without children.

Another reason why (even it it could be affordable) housing benefit claimants aren't favoured is that if the landlord needs the house back and doesn't want to renew the tenancy, they cannot have their house back without a long and costly court process. Councils will not give tenants a council house if they do no stay til the bitter end, as they class this as making themselves willingly homeless.

@notstopped thanks for the clarification. That potentially opens a completely different can of worms for landlords (and I mean all landlords. Noting your comments I am not pointing anything, fingers or otherwise, at you!) The can of worms is: are landlords running a business and if so are they therefor subject to the DDA requirements to adapt premises to make them suitable for disable people.

And "benefits scum" was a paraphrasing of the vitriolic gutter press and those that read it. Look at the HYS comments on "No DSS: Most flat shares refuse benefit claimants" www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39102860 then, to quote poster "BBC Labour bias", "We don't let to dss because as they get everything for free they think nothing of trashing a house. Scum".

Of course I'm not suggest that there aren't nightmare tenants (and there will be ones that are in full time employment in that group as well as those on benefits). However it is clear that there are many many people who are on benefits who get unfairly tarred by a wide sweeping biased and inaccurate brush by Daily Mail* reading scum [my words :) ... eye for an eye ..]

*other biased press is available

Renting out property is a business. While the mn guardian swallowers want profit from human need to be outlawed, it isn't happening. They dont blubber at paying for food, education, healthcare for some reason.

If the powers that be want more landlords to let to benefits claimants, make it possible by legislating for mortgage companies and insurers to cover it, and remember that outside the holy city of london, dirty dumps do not rent for thousands a month.

Also fix the broken system that allows non payers to stay for up to a year. Non payer does not equate to benefit claimant.

Allegedly a tenant that stops paying rent won't get council help. Not in my experience, so perhaps that wants fixing too.

But as someone mentioned, the government does not provide enough social housing and relies on private landlords to fill the gap. Stop the private landlords and you will have a lot of people with nowhere to go. There isn't enough social housing and won't be until right to buy stopped, taxes up and tax on renovations and brownfield lowered from the current 20%.

As asked - I allow pets within normal life ( obviously no dog for someone out all day with no daycare) and definitely an assistance dog.

Most lenders make it a condition of the mortgage not to have benefits claimants. Most people letting properties have a mortgage. So it is not landlord's fault except those very few landlords with no mortgage.

My son lets out his house and it is an express term of the tenancy that benefits are not now or later claimed (and no pets, no smoking) and also expressly no Airbnb lettings either.

Although most landlords try to give a good service we are not charities and we are entitled to pick the stable tenant in work rather than the in and out of prison drug user with a record of bad debts behind them. Whilst as a society we probably want state provision for housing for those in dire need it is not unreasonable for a landlord with a mortgage to pay to want someone who will ensure the landlord is not put in default of their mortgage. My daughter also let her flat before she earned enough to live in it herself and she also had similar restrictions. She now lives in it so has moved from a buy to let to an ordinary (cheaper) mortgage.

It won't win probably, as long as there is such a BTL culture with small-time LLs operating on narrow margins.

@expatinscotland Indirect discrimination refers to the situation where an action is not one that discrimination law deems unlawful, however the action disadvantages groups that equality law seeks to protect – groups identified by “protected characteristics” eg sex. Equality law embodies, for example, the principal of equal access to goods and services for, in the case of the protected characteristic of sex, men and women.
So if an action or omission is discriminatory then surely it is discriminatory. Statistics from Parliament show that over 50% of housing benefit claimants are single women. Clearly there is a single group that has a protected characteristic that is adversely affected by a “no tenants on benefits policy”. It has been noted by both Parliamentary reports and in Hansard that single mothers are disadvantaged by a no benefits policy. I cannot see that not being discrimination, albeit indirect discrimination.
TV and radio programmers are exploring the legal aspects of the case for upcoming transmissions. It will be interesting to hear further professional opinion on the matter.
If it is discrimination, then your posting “It won't win probably, as long as there is such a BTL culture with small-time LLs operating on narrow margins.” implies there are times when it is reasonable to discriminate. Surely society can never, must never, countenance that as a basic underlying principle and must do everything possible to eliminate discrimination and everything possible to support people who, through no fault of their own, struggle to support themselves. Society can’t go “we’ll only do something about discrimination when it doesn’t inconvenience us”. Obviously a change in the law that shrinks the availability of rented properties would fail those in need, therefor putting landlords out of business is nonsensical. However that does not reduce the merit of challenging the status quo. Indeed it has to be challenged. The Royal Institute of Charted Surveyors notes “the UK’s most vulnerable tenants are being pushed out of the private rental market.”
While building social housing (and campaigning for more social housing) may be part of the answer to the problem, creating that housing takes time and investment and doesn’t necessarily put people on benefits in the best geographical location to allow them to reduce their reliance on benefits. A quick solution would be to ensure that the private rented sector is open to all and the pool of BTL properties is accessible to those on benefits. So a successful legal challenge creates the opportunity for others to pick up the baton and force the Government to work harder at addressing the issue, be it, as the RICS suggest, by the Government provide some form of “state endorsed” “guarantor scheme”, or by the Government imposing upon the lenders and insurers to make their policies more enabling, or by the Government reversing the damage caused by the erosion of, and changes to, the benefits system that has resulted in people being locked out of the private rented housing market.