Landlord not happy that I’m applying for Housing Benefit

[Worriedfortheroofovermyhead]

I told my Landlord that I had applied for Housing Benefit and they made it clear that they are not happy about, so I’m worried about my tenancy. They told me that they had not let to someone on Housing Benefit before and did not intend to going forward. I think I need to talk to someone at Shelter, but any further advice would be helpful as I’m feeling very anxious about the situation.

Ditto , the property maybe a housing association or council property. First thing i would do is do a land registry search to check who is the owner of the property you can do it online for £3 . No LL is going to go on their gut , the reason maybe that the 'LL' is already claiming hb from that address , and pocketing the rent from you. I would get the info sharpish OP . Also if not you need to check the rent is within the LHA rate ie hb dont automatically pay all your rent the only pay upto the 30th percentile of rents in the area The way to find out what the rate is , is google LHA rates and the borough and you have to put in your postcode and it gives you the rate so you know if theres going to be a shortfall. But mist importantly check the land reg ASAP , because you will have no rights if the property is being sublet by the tenant. Time to start doing some digging , good luck.

@Worriedfortheroofovermyhead the fact ppl have told u it is important to declare the HB status to ur landlord as it affects their insurance and other matters, while u insist that being truthful and doing what you are obliged to do, puts ur integrity under the grill!!! And the fact you moved to another property knowing well ahead that you are dependent on a friend to fund your move is a whole other matter of issues.
beside all of this, you are very comfortable making the landlord appear like the one wrong, and questioning her ability to live without u paying ur rent is just ...... ?????

You dont come across like someone i'd want to rent to. Not a single word where u held urself accountable for anything

No LL is going to go on their gut

We never run credit checks etc for the house we rent out, we do have a conversation with them when showing them the house just asking what they do for a living, if it will just be them there etc but we never ask for proof of finances, references etc. We do "go on our gut" it is possible to go off impressions. We have our 3rd tenant in, first two were both there for years and never had an issue, our current tenant has been there about 5 months and so far had no problems, even with everything going on just now (he's SE and not currently working) and he applied for the help he could and is still paying his rent every month (we offered to reduce for the time being but he said he wanted to keep paying in full as he was getting UC). So there is LLs out there that do, but equally that could be why they're not impressed that the OP has only been there since Feb and is late on rent already. Plus as I said in my last post, she applied for HB over a month ago now but has only just told them now. Wouldn't come across as very reliable to me if it was my tenant that I didn't know very well

Why on earth would you do that, Louise? .
it is possible to go off impressions. Wonder how anybody ever gets scammed, in that case; maybe you should bottle your technique and sell it.

@Thisismytimetoshine not really any need to be sarky - as I said it's worked for us for 7 years with 3 tenants so far, we do everything lawfully with giving contracts, deposit in the scheme etc, if you're a LL, you do what you want with your tenants, I'll continue to do what works for us - was just stating that LLs do do it as a few PPs have said they doubt some would

Who is us?

@Thisismytimetoshine me and my partner, why's that relevant?

Because there's an AS function on Mumsnet...

@Thisismytimetoshine I don't know what an AS function is and still not sure why it is relevant to you

@Louise24902, what do you based your gut feelings on? We did that too, met the people ahead. Had a great meeting, very friendly, looking nice, said all the right things, even told us they'd been landlords themselves before and knew exactly what it can be like with bad tenants, reassured us they were not like that. Yet, they turned out to be scammers. They had other people living in the house, stopped paying rent, left the place in a complete state. Our only gratefulness was that they did leave without having to take them to court.

Never again, we learnt our lesson. I would say you've just been very lucky.

@dontdisturbmenow that sounds like a nightmare with your tenants, glad they left in the end without needing to go to court!

Don't get me wrong, we're both fully aware that the way we do it we probably will eventually run in to a problem and have a tenant that isn't as great as the ones we've had previously. We meet the potential tenants, have a chat with them, find out what they do for a living, how many people are planning on living there, why they've left their last place (if they have) and go from there, as you say we know that people may come across very reliable and then turn out not to be and we are in the fortunate position that if that did happen and our rent wasn't paid we would be able to comfortably cover the mortgage and the cost if it needed to go to court, although as I say, so far we've been lucky and it has worked out for us.

The main reason we do it this way is that we both know ourselves that credit scores may not reflect your current position financially, we've been there where we've had quite a low score and it makes it really hard to pass credit checks but we've both always worked full time in reliable jobs and made a good wage so we prefer to judge based on character rather than searches. Yes we could still ask for proof of finances or an employment contract etc but I'm SE myself and my wage can change every month depending on hours worked etc so again don't like to judge based on that.
It's worked for us so far and while I know that are a lot of tenants out there that won't be as good as ours, it's just how we like to do it. As I say we do still give them full contracts, deposit in the scheme, take first months rent upfront and we do try to get to know them a wee bit and stay on friendly terms when they move in so they feel like they can approach us if they have any issues or any problem paying their rent etc

@Louise24902, I genuinely think it's great that there are LLs like you because as you've said, some good people will miss out because of credit check when they actually make excellentent tenants. It's great that you only had good experiences and can continue to do so.

Sadly, this is how I started but after the first two experiences turning bad ending up out of pocket and very stressed, I lost faith. We now have tenants who are professionals and look very good on paper. I assumed they only be there for 6 months or so as they would look to buy but so far they've been there 3 years.

@dontdisturbmenow yeah that's how we see it, as I say we've both been in that position of having low credit scores and it just feels like a kick when you're down when you then can't find anywhere to stay either.

I understand why you don't do it anymore, it sounds like you've had a nightmare time of it but good that you've got good tenants in now that are reliable! In the future if we have bad experiences we may end up going down the route of checks etc but for right now we've been lucky that we've had good tenants and hopefully will continue to do so😁

@Worriedfortheroofovermyhead We’re really sorry to hear you've experienced housing benefit discrimination, it’s an issue Shelter has been campaigning on.

It’s actually unlawful under the equality act, here's a link to a BBC article on this: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-51642316

We’d be really happy to chat to you about your situation and give some advice, plus if you're interested you can get involved in our campaign to end DSS/Housing Benefit discrimination too.

Please do get in touch at [email protected] and we'll do all we can.

If anyone needs general advice, people can speak to one of our expert advisers at: england.shelter.org.uk/get_help

I hope that helps,
Shelter