unemployed/renting

goony123

we are moving out of our rented house in surrey as im now out of work and cant afford the £1000pm rent so we will be staying with my MOTHER IN LAW:eek: for what I thought would be about a week untill i get my deposite back from this house to use on another BUT apparantley estate agents wont touch me as im unemployed unless i get a garuantor but the only people I could ask are our parents who are retired and they would need to have an income of about £18000PA to cover it!! SO what do I do now? as we are moving on sunday??

goony123

bumpoowee

So you are moving out of one house because you can't afford the rent due to unemployment, but despite still being unemployed you are moving into somewhere else to rent? That seems a bit strange to me.

Can you pay 6 months rent in advance on the new place? If I've understood you right then you cant, but how do you plan to pay for the new place at all?

goony123

well initially with housing benefit i suppose im not really sure as ive never been in this position before but it will be easier to pay £500pm rent when I get a job than paying £1000pm rent that im paying now

goony

kunekune

Well you can hardly expect them to stay and rack up debt on a rent they can no longer afford, and if they did and ended up homeless it would be voluntary homelessness. But they still need somewhere to live. They're entitled to housing benefit, but no-one is likely to rent them a house that they can use HB to pay for. Seems to me that OP is being responsible, but the way the system works means that it is really difficult to MOVE while you are in the pre-housing benefit stage. It's a bit of a catch22.

chambta

kunekune wrote: »

Well you can hardly expect them to stay and rack up debt on a rent they can no longer afford, and if they did and ended up homeless it would be voluntary homelessness. But they still need somewhere to live. They're entitled to housing benefit, but no-one is likely to rent them a house that they can use HB to pay for. Seems to me that OP is being responsible, but the way the system works means that it is really difficult to MOVE while you are in the pre-housing benefit stage. It's a bit of a catch22.

In my local area you can apply for LHA without having a definite property in place. Seems more and more landlords are considering people on benefits.

Pigmy

Not all agents or landlords require a guarantor. It is certainly asked for a lot of the time, but it is only an option. I rent out property and I always ask for a guarantor however I very rarely get one. Try a few agents - they might not all ask. Also try pushing it to the back of the negotation queue - don't declare that you don't have one until the deal is nearly done. Then the pressure is on the landlord to compromise, not you.

Good luck

Catspajamas

Hi me and my other half have just rented out a flat. I am currently unemployed due to our relocation but he is working but doesn't have enough to comfortably cover rent alone (We have plenty of savings so can cover my half of rent if I can't get a job!)

We were told by our agents that unless we both got a guarentor no landlords would touch us at this current time unless we paid 6 months up front, which I have to say is fair enough! I asked if this is common practice and was told yes, not officially of course but just because obviously no one wants to take a risk.

NEH

megancara wrote: »

Hi me and my other half have just rented out a flat. I am currently unemployed due to our relocation but he is working but doesn't have enough to comfortably cover rent alone (We have plenty of savings so can cover my half of rent if I can't get a job!)

We were told by our agents that unless we both got a guarentor no landlords would touch us at this current time unless we paid 6 months up front, which I have to say is fair enough! I asked if this is common practice and was told yes, not officially of course but just because obviously no one wants to take a risk.

Some landlords are flexible and will take up to 3 months in advance, it's not a definite that you must have 6 months up front...My husband is self employed and I am unemployed and we have just rented somewhere and we only offered 3 months up front...

PasturesNew

Try to find private landlords. Contact the council and ask if they have a list of social landlords - these are private landlords who rent to DSS and are less likely to be idiot landlords. Check local papers for small ads, check shop windows for small ads, ask around your network and extended network of friends, neighbours and ex work colleagues etc.

Try online in places like gumtree, but be aware there are a lot of scams going on there at the moment so check that any "landlord" is who they say they are and not some scam artist who has a set of keys and simply scams people for cash deposits.

You need to look up how much LHA is in your area. I presume you are a couple so you'd get the 1-bed self-contained rate. Put postcodes in here: https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/Secure/LHASearchIntro.aspx

julie03

we private rented when my husband was unemployed you just have to make alot of calls to private landlords in places such as loot, it takes a while but there will be one somewhere that takes hb without a guarantor