Letting to housing benefit claimant

[Spillage21]

DH and I own a lovely, 4-bed house in a village in Kent and, due to work commitments, we cannot live in it. We decided to rent it out. It has a quirky layout and having been on the market for two months it appears it's not suitable for the rich and picky clientele the village attracts ('It's not big enough for our furniture'). I have spoken to the local council's housing department and they have told me that they have a woman with children who would love the property. They have said that HB would be paid direct to me (for very specific reasons). We always pay for watertight referencing, rent guarantee insurance, and, in this case, will have an AST drawn up by a solicitor with some specific inclusions (clawback issues etc). I would love to help this woman, but my sensible head says I should really think very carefully about this. What do you think?

DH and I claim a small amount of HB and our Landlord and landlady have said they love us.

The house is always clean and tidy when they come. We've sorted out a lot of the mess that the previous "None benefit claiming tennants" left.

HB claimants aren't all bad!

The council tried to pursue me, but they let it go.
I had found out that the work reference as a restaurant manager was fake, it was written by a family member who owned a restaurant. But as she had dumped flyers from said restaurant in the garden, along with the nappies she had not bothered binning, it was easy to find her family. Even if they had left no forwarding address. We did not know she claimed HB. But I think the estate agent did, as they approached the council asking to have the arrears paid directly to the landlord, which of course they didnt, as they had already paid the tenant. (who of course had not paid her rent).

I emailed the council the crime reference number, the list of stolen inventory, details of the arrears, and copies of the bills for repairs, pictures of vandalism caused, and they backed off. I also asked them to not go knocking and scare the new tenants, as they had nothing to do with this and were young students and could do without the hassle. (The council had gotten the bailif involved, and were informing us that they would be coming around) Luckily they backed off. Hopefully, with details of all the names she used, the names of her children, her email address, and the family restaurant, they would find her themselves. They even asked me to open her post and see if I could find NI numbers and hospital numbers for the kids...

She had not paid her gas and electricity for a few months either, so we had to cover the arrears from her last personal meter reading. ...

It's much to risk. And, as QS points out, they can have references that are not geniuine. Also, you can't clawback anything when there's nothing there.

A 4-bed house is large, she must have a large family for the council to assess her as in need of such a large abode.

TBH, I'd not do it.

Private tenants are so picky: it's been on the market for 2 months and the excuses so far are 'We don't like the downstairs bathroom' (it's a bungalow) and 'It's too small' and 'there are housing association properties nearby' (I kid you not). A lot are very rich people decamping from London (it's very chi chi) to secure school places and apply their buying criteria to the rental properties.

BTW there is a legal clause you can put in AST regarding clawback.

It's your house, Spillage. You can let it to whom you want, but you asked for opinions, and mine is that if I had a house that large I would not let it to family who were entirely on benefits, regardless of clauses put in the contract.

To be assessed as suitable for a property that size, this family has many children. I would not want this for my home to let.

I know Quint, saw photos of the damage. It was dire. It would certainly put me off.

[sigh] I don't know what to do...will digest various advice over the weekend. Thanks all.

We claim HB and we are good tenants. Rent is paid on time every month and DH takes care of the upkeep as we know the LL runs several businesses and doesn't want to be bothered.

Not all HB claimants are bad.