‘No DSS’ when renting

[ihavetogoshoppingnow]

When estate agents say no DSS does it mean anyone on benefits at all or just people who are unemployed?

I currently own a house with my now ex and I’m looking at moving out and renting untill our house sells and I can buy on my own. I work full time but will be entitled to tax credits and housing benefit.

@theunsure

@theunsure How many employers do you know that GUARANTEE employment (ie: Income) for FIVE YEARS?!?!?!?!

My income is more secure than ANY employment!

Unless it turned out that you were faking and the landlord got caught up in the fraud case and was financially affected by the whole thing. Landlords won't want that risk if they can avoid it.

The thing is, What, is that only your PIP is guaranteed for 5 years, the rest of your benefits are at the mercy of other policy . So that being what it is, landlords see it as too big of a risk.

Some landlords make a killing off housing benefit claimants. They have awful, substandard properties and rent them to claimants at the top housing benefit rate through housing associations and the council. In London this now seems to be the only way to find somewhere which accepts housing benefit, and from what I've seen its essentially slum housing.

Yeah it's all bent. Also LAs now discharge their duty to house the homeless by placing them in these hovels. Housing benefit going to private landlords accounts for £10 billion a year of public spending.

shame on those landlords and the mostly-London councils that tolerate it.

Agree it's endemic in London but there are plenty in other areas too. I've seen the insides of some of these places people are put in, including a lot of vulnerable people, and they are truly disgusting. Damp, infested not just with cockroaches but bed bugs and also things like raw sewage outside - seriously, it is a scandal the living situation of people in such a rich country. But that's the result of deregulating rentals, increasing the number of private operators and simultaneously handing them what appears to be a blank cheque. Of course they're not going to provide anything affordable and decent when they can get away with expensive and hazardous.

In Wales we have something called Rent Smart Wales, you must by law have a licence, your tenants can check up on you. Getting the licence is not easy you have to do a lot of studying, or turn your property over to an estate agent. This is what you need in England.

www.rentsmart.gov.wales/en/tenant/

Housing authorities are not subject to the same rules as private LLs which is a huge problem. It allows them to get away with substandard housing.

Nearly all my tenants receive benefits because they are low income and most have DC. However they are all working, studying or disabled. None of them are 'unemployed'. I won't rent to a household where, on a long term basis, no one is working. I've been burned twice and the second time cost me over £20k to get them evicted. The tenant was a complete fantasist who told the court my father bought the house in my name with the intention of giving it to her after 25 years. The courts decided they needed to hear her claim even though she couldn't provide a single piece of evidence supporting her claim.

@Harolds
I knew someone who was staying in HMO on housing benefit and was exactly how you describe - bed bug infested and sewage in an overgrown garden. The landlord always said its up to the housing association/ council to sort out.

But everyone who earns below something like 35k with kids is entitled to Tax credits... Tax credits will now be called universal credits! So anyone earning under 35k won't be able to rent?? That's bonkers. Tax credits never got included with DSS before

@days

I think its lower now, but yes that can't be right. Many mortgage lenders take at least some tax credits into consideration, so if that stops you renting thats crazy.

My landlord insurance will let me accept people with permanent disability benefit or a pension, other forms of benefit are ruled out. I think my mortgage is less strict but still has some rules. It isn't landlords just refusing to rent to people.

Welshmist, imo that doesn't go nearly far enough. Neither do the obligations on private and public sector providers that you refer to, want2be. The Welsh scheme is just registration, the English scheme is a system of civil penalties for gross dangerous breaches. Neither requires private landlords to provide properties fit for habitation, unlike the duty that public sector providers are under. This has got us into the situation we are now where one third of all private sector properties are substandard. It's not just a few, and it's not just in London. It is widespread. And we are paying the owners of those substandard properties £10 billion every single year.

What we need is a minimum habitation standard for all rented homes together with a system whereby tenants themselves can bring action against landlords instead of relying on under resourced council officers. Of course in order to protect tenants who did so we would need to reform tenancy laws and give tenants security of tenure because without that any rights are in name only given that it is so easy to evict.

These are all things that are in place in many other countries - it's only because we've got so used to treating tenants like shit here that it seems outlandish to talk about it in these terms.

Namechange what a total scumbag your friend's landlord is. How can it be the responsibility of anyone other than him? He owns the damn place. I hope your friend is in a much better situation now.

The rental system makes me so angry. Few other sectors are allowed to be so openly discriminatory. Landlords, estate agents and the mortgage companies should all be taken to task on it. All have a responsibility to change.
I have zero sympathy for BTL landlords. If your not willing to take the risks that come with letting inclusively and at an affordable cost - then frankly you shouldn't be a landlord. Housing - particularly where vulnerable people are concerned - should not be used as a money grabbing scheme.

Like several others on this thread I am not a BTL landlord but someone who currently doesn't need to live in their house so is renting it. If the rules around renting became such as my home could be put at serious risk I just wouldn't rent it, it would be empty. Any market place activity sets its own rates, house sellers sell for the maximum they can achieve, they don't set out to sell their house more cheaply so a wider range of people can afford it. People buying and selling cars, computers, food and pretty much everything else do the same.
The OP is discovering that many landlords don't want to take any money from the government so there are two reasonably distinct issues, the rules and enthusiasm for people to let to individuals who require state assistance to cover the rent and secondly the condition of housing available to those who are dependent on state funding.
I think two very different groups are landlords are being discussed here. If people want more state controlled renting, possibly HA or council housing they would need to vote for party that supported it.

I thought that it was relatively few BTL mortgages that refuse benefits now? I am sure that I saw the statistics somewhere, I will have a look.
I agree that it’s discriminatory and struggle to see how it’s thought of as reasonable by anyone.

Quite interesting if you have time to read

researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN07008/SN07008.pdf

thinking Id love to live in a townhome in Manhattan but I don't have a spare $20m. Should the sellers lower their price to something I can afford?!?

Seriously, your post is insane. The reason for HB is because housing is expensive and low income households need assistance to afford it. Artificially low rents create a lot of problems because LL won't be able to afford the maintenance to keep the home safe.

It does make me laugh, how landlords claim they are charging market rent while that asking price requires £10 billion a year taxpayer top up. Want2be's entire business/charging model, for example, relies on what money she can get from the government.

being a landlord is a business, driven by supply.and demand. suggesting that people running businesses take extra risk is a stupid comment. if you run your own finances like that you are a fool.an

should the supermarkets give the food away?

too many people, taxes too low, decades of poor planning, right to buy all contribute to lack of affordable housing.

and as always, saying that landlords should not take money from the government means that landlords should not rent to anyone on benefits.t

isnt logic a bitch?

Just pointing out that it's not market rent if £10 billion of said rent money comes from the public purse.

Want2be, for example, is not charging market rent. Her rent is not set at a rate her tenants are willing to pay. It's set at a rate subsidised by government money. Her pricing model is dictated by government intervention. That is the opposite of market forces in action.