Renting a house TO a Housing Association

Landprofits

If you have a house that you wish to rent out - is it possible to rent hit out to a Housing Association?

kelda_shelton

Landprofits wrote: »

If you have a house that you wish to rent out - is it possible to rent hit out to a Housing Association?

Scotland - No.

England - I believe you can but only a long term lease eg - 25 yrs.

Wales - not sure.

pingu2209

You would have to be insane. The property would come back a wreck.

kelda_shelton

pingu2209 wrote: »

You would have to be insane. The property would come back a wreck.

Umm.. why would this be a worse situation that renting a property privately?

A housing association has a duty to keep things to tolerable standard for its tenants and if you agreed on a lease you would agree in that what state you'd get it back in.

Jowo_2

Yes, many housing associations (and councils) operate private sector leasing schemes where they take a private property from a landlord and let it to their tenants for a 3 to 5 year period.

I helped refurbish a friend's property which was returned by Brighton and Hove council on their private sector leasing scheme half-trashed by the drug taking ex-offender newly released from prison for a serious offence that was in an violent relationship with their partner, hence the smashed windows and doors for starters. The neighbours got the total brush off from the council each time they reported anti social nuisance behaviour. There were more than 30 plus complaints and reports over behaviour or damage in just over a year, all mainly ignored and not responded to.

It's a very risky way of letting a property - the intermediate landlord doesn't give a damn, they are just glad for any sucker that allows them to let properties to the type of tenant they'd rather not have in their own stock with a secure tenancy. They invariably let it to someone vulnerable on benefits, the type of tenant that a private landlord would avoid letting to.

So don't be swayed by promises that they manage the tenant and the repairs - there's little a landlord can do once they've handed over the property to a HA or council to stick in their chavtastic tenants, including those recently released from prison...

brighton and hove council private sector leasing. brighton and hove council private sector letting. brighton and hove council temporary housing.

Jowo_2

kelda_shelton wrote: »

Umm.. why would this be a worse situation that renting a property privately?

A housing association has a duty to keep things to tolerable standard for its tenants and if you agreed on a lease you would agree in that what state you'd get it back in.

What happened with Brighton and Hove council is they dismissed virtually all reports of anti social behaviour by their tenants in the private property they managed as 'hearsay' and refused to open an anti-social case to investigate the allegations...because they were allegations.

A council or HA could well take the path of least resistence and just dismiss all reports unless the neighbours or freeholder can prove the theft of the post, the dumping of rubbish in the common area, the littering of the garden, the domestic disturbances and so on.

Also, in the case of the leases between HA/council and landlord, they will cap the compensation to a couple of months rent and exclude the condition of the decor and flooring, shrug off a lot of the damage as 'fair wear and tear' and so forth.

yes, there are agreements and these are impossible to enforce and put the risk on the landlord, rather than the HA or council.

this is why my friend got it back in a bad state - the council may or may not have performed internal inspections but never notified my friend of any damage and simply handed it back with a filthy cooker, broken bathroom fan, leakikng bath, fag burns in the sink, damaged kitchen cabinets, scratched floors, broken window, 3 doors with holes punched in, smashed window stays and door locks, lost keys, scratched bath.

The landlord was not informed that the tenants kept pets, that they had installed 9 shelves, boarded up the chimney, installed a satellite dish and had badly decorated a bedroom (painted around the furniture and spilt paint on the floor).

Also, the tenants refused to move out when their agreement expired with the council and the lease between council and landlord had ended. They then notified my friend that the local courts were unlikely to agree to any eviction proceedings because their scum tenants had a kiddy and it would breach their human rights. I'm not making this up.

Landprofits

Jowo wrote: »

Also, in the case of the leases between HA/council and landlord, they will cap the compensation to a couple of months rent and exclude the condition of the decor and flooring, shrug off a lot of the damage as 'fair wear and tear' and so forth.

I take your point about fair wear and tear, but surely if such a matter went to court the court could not rule that massive damagage to a property can be called "fair wear and tear". A door handle coming loose is fair wear and tear. Damagaed walls because the chimney has been boarded up is nothing more than criminal damage IMO.

yes, there are agreements and these are impossible to enforce and put the risk on the landlord, rather than the HA or council.

Why? If agreements are in place, surely not honouring the terms of those agreements is breach of contract?

this is why my friend got it back in a bad state - the council may or may not have performed internal inspections but never notified my friend of any damage and simply handed it back with a filthy cooker, broken bathroom fan, leakikng bath, fag burns in the sink, damaged kitchen cabinets, scratched floors, broken window, 3 doors with holes punched in, smashed window stays and door locks, lost keys, scratched bath.

But can the landlord not have an independednt inspection carried out and expect the council to return the property in the same condition? Surely this is a reasonable expectation?

Also, the tenants refused to move out when their agreement expired with the council and the lease between council and landlord had ended. They then notified my friend that the local courts were unlikely to agree to any eviction proceedings because their scum tenants had a kiddy and it would breach their human rights. I'm not making this up.

So at this point - who's responsibility is that? Does the council have to continue to pay the landlord or not?

Jowo_2

Landprofits wrote: »

I take your point about fair wear and tear, but surely if such a matter went to court the court could not rule that massive damagage to a property can be called "fair wear and tear". A door handle coming loose is fair wear and tear. Damagaed walls because the chimney has been boarded up is nothing more than criminal damage IMO.

Firstly my friend had little appetite to take the council to court and secondly the inventory/schedule of condition that the council produced was written on the back of a fag packet. Their poor record keeping would have disadvantaged my friend who would have struggled to have proved that their tenants were responsible for the changes in condition.

The lease with the council stipulated compensation for damage is capped to two months rent so that's simply a contractual risk that my friend took which meant the sum she paid to restore the property ended up being vastly greater than the council's liability to her. It's up to the claimant to prove the issue which is hard in the face of crap paperwork by the social housing landlord and their reluctance to respond in writing to issues which cannily prevents an audit trail for the landlord to build up a case...

Landprofits wrote: »

Why? If agreements are in place, surely not honouring the terms of those agreements is breach of contract?

As I've indicated before, the leases offered by social housing landlords to private landlords to take on their properties for tenants on their housing lists are weighed in favour of the council or housing association and minimise their exposure to the costs/nuisance of their tenants behaviour. They expose the landlord to disadvantageous terms and conditions compared to how the social housing landlord would operate its properties with its own stock, or how a private landlord can operate it to private tenants they find directly.

Far better for the landlord not to put themselves at risk by handing over the property to a HA or local council than take action many years later when the contract is a stitch-up. By then, the damage is literally done - court action is a last resort - lengthy, stressful, expensive.

And the agreement that Brighton and Hove council offer to private landlords on its private sector leasing scheme is one where they can terminate the lease or extend it at whim but the landlord cannot. Also, the landlord has to prove to the council that the council isn't honouring its obligations set out in the lease and give them two months to address it.

There may well be a clause that makes it clear that the social housing landlord will ensure that their tenant isn't a nuisance and that repairs will done on a timely basis but enforcing it is a nightmare in the face of apathy, poor communication and complete indifference.

Landprofits wrote: »

But can the landlord not have an independednt inspection carried out and expect the council to return the property in the same condition? Surely this is a reasonable expectation?

No, the way that private sector leasing is generally set up is that the landlord must sign the agreement, hand over the keys and not access the property throughout the entire duration of the lease.

You may think it is a reasonable expectation that the social housing landlord would return the property in the same condition but the leases are stuffed with terms and conditions that limit this quite basic expectation, for example, by capping their liability to x sum, excluding quite basic things such as decoration and flooring which can cost a fortune to remedy.

Landprofits wrote: »

So at this point - who's responsibility is that? Does the council have to continue to pay the landlord or not?

yes, Brighton and Hove council continued to pay for the additional 4 months that the tenant stayed in the property past the duration of the lease signed between the council and the private landlord but that's not the point.

The point is that they promised to return the property in good condition at the end of the lease and handed it back with issues that had to be resolved by a glazier, plumber, handyman/decorator, electrician, carpet fitter and kitchen fitter.

They lost control of their tenant and were very shoulder shrugging about the issue of their tenant continuing to live in the property months after it was supposed to be handed back - they were completely apathetic about getting their tenant onward accommodation, offering them a property (which they turned down) AFTER the tenant was supposed to have left. Three months later they still wouldn't confirm if they'd bothered to offer the tenant another property to coax them out.

When a social housing landlord has a private sector lease and their own tenants refuse to leave the property, it can be either an issue for the council/HA to resolve or the landlord. In this case, the council refused to say if they'd served court papers for a possession order and presumably just bribed the tenant out of the property with an offer of extremely desirable accommodation, probably rewarding them for their repeated breaches of the tenancy agreement...

However, I have read threads on Landlordzone from private landlords who have been completely abandoned by the social housing landlord when their tenant refuses to move out and have been told that they must undertake the full eviction process. Remember that the leases have an expiry date and the social housing landlord can usually terminate it at short notice.

In my opinion, only an idiot would hand over their private property to a disorganised social housing landlord to entrust it to the type of tenant that even they don't wish to house with their own stock! There are two layers of apathy that leads to the destruction of the property - the social housing landlord knows there's not much a landlord can do once they've handed over the keys, the tenants don't pay a penny rent out of earned income, it's just interim emergency housing for the vulnerable who don't make ideal tenants.