Renting to D.S.S. not in contracts?

real1314

rhianna99 wrote: »

Personally I think more Landlords should give families on LHA a chance, I don't think putting 'no DSS' on an advert is very fair. I privately rent, have rented the same house for 2 years now and our landlord is very happy with us, she says we look after the house, always pay rent on time, unlike some of her other tennants who are not on LHA. My partner works full time, but we still receive about one third of our rent in benefit. Our landlord didn't make any allowances for us though, we were required to pay a month and a half as deposit and a month up front same as any other prospective tennant. I suppose we are lucky because we have yearly contracts and our landlord is looking to rent this house to us for as long as we want (hopefully until we can afford our own home). All I am saying is people can be too quick judge and it seems to be getting harder for people to secure any decent private housing.

I have a friend who's landlord would only accept people on LHA because it meant they could charge the highest rent for a very poor quality home, my friend took the house because she was desperate. A year later her partner moved in who had a job and she was given notice to leave and they were made homeless, I don't think these landlords should be allowed a licence.

You're probably making the mistake of judging everyone in your situations by your standards.

YOU may well be a decent tenant. Some tenants are not.

Some bad tenants are employed and "pay" from their own income, some are LHA/DSS (well, HB/DWP really - DSS went nearly 10 years ago). A higher proportion are likely to be DSS. What's more, sueing an employed person for rent arrears can affect their credit rating adversely and can lead to an attachment of earnings.
Sueing a DSS tenant doesn't really affect their credit rating in most cases, and private individuals/businesses can't enable an attachment to benefits.

As for any possible mortgage clause, it wuld be pretty much unenforceable, and irrelevant. What if an employed tenant lost their job?
What might be accurate is that a LL might not be allowed to give a tenancy to "people placed by DSS/LA/HB"; in other words homeless people requiring accomodating through some sort of placement action by some sort of organisation.
That bit might amount to a breach of the mortgage conditions. Who knows if it could ever result in action against the LL. :cool:

property.advert

On the one hand people on LHA are less likely to move as they have limited funds which may seem great for void management but they are also the people who care least about anything, including your property. It isn't just the TV image, go and look at the great unwashed on their estates and tell me honestly if you would welcome them into your house.

In a decent area, the talk in the pub is about work, social activity, law abiding stuff. In council areas and others with high LHA claimants, it is about immigration, cheating the system, scamming or robbing this or that and overwhelmingly about drugs. Empirical evidence, not wishy washy theorising.

summerstreetallotments

...I don't think all people on benefits are lacking in morality, a lot of people have just had a lot of bad luck..and would be good tenants. Where I live it's impossible to get housing if you're D.S.S...I worry about what people in that situation are going to do ...as there's no new council housing this days...it's all going to get bad when the fixed 2 year council tenancies come in

BitterAndTwisted

Those tenancies aren't going to be fixed. They are introductory tenancies and if they pay their rent and act like good neighbours like they should they will be offered a secure tenancy

tbs624

clutton wrote: »

a LL can get an attachment to benefit for rent arrears of a CURRENT tenant

An attachment OF benefit may be sought by a private LL, but s/he may find him/herslef to be unlucky as there is a hierarchy of payment/recovery and only 3 attachments can be in place at one time. Those who run up rent arrears frequently have other creditors.

moromir

Wee_Willy_Harris wrote: »

Ummmm..... Why the automatic assumption that a DSS tenant (or any other tenant) will want to become homeless when their tenancy ends? Is it not beyond the scope of your imagination that they may secure an alternative tenancy in much the same way that they secured the existing one? The answer to the OPs original question about "No DSS" is, sadly, often the result of crass generalisations like your own!

Err I haven't made that assumption anywhere? Infact I've outlined the extremely upsetting and stressful situation that a HB tenant will likely have to go through to continue getting assistance from the Council with their housing! I also pointed out how I think its very wrong that Councils force this upon people in that situation (although I understand why they have to, with the shortages of social housing available).

Of course they may secure alternative accomodation, but in many areas there are very few properties available to HB tenants, compared to the vast number available to employed tenants, ergo there is a much higher risk that a HB won't (can't) vacate a property until they are absolutely forced to by the Courts for fear of losing their Council assistance, as to vacate before a possession order is to make yourself 'intentially homeless', compared to an employed tenant who has many more opportunities to secure a replacement property and 'move on'.

You may call it a generalisation, I call it a very sad reality in large parts of the country.

theartfullodger

Mortgages that exclude tenants on benefits (what, child benefit or working tax credit???) would probably turn out to be an "unfair "term or unenforceable : Is the lender really going to repossess just because a Tenant is getting JSA??? The papers would have a field day - I'd be happy to pay £10 to an agreed charity if anyone can cite such a repossession.

Re insurance any Landlord COULD get cover for DSS if they could be !!!!+d.

The NO DSS clause is of course b+ll+cks anyway - what would a Landlord do if tenant loses job, (for an entirely blameless reason) one week after moving in & needs HB/LHA to pay the rent?

Scottish core standards for accredited landlords anyway explicitly prohibit discrimination on benefit grounds.

Cheers!!

Artful

t0rt0ise

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Those tenancies aren't going to be fixed. They are introductory tenancies and if they pay their rent and act like good neighbours like they should they will be offered a secure tenancy

Introductory tenancies were introduced in 1996. The government has recently talked about bringing in short term tenancies. We shall see what actually happens.

tbs624

Many private LLs have managed to run successful property letting businesses on the back of renting solely to Ts who are in receipt of benefits and LHA recipients are not some homogeneous group toally lacking in morals. Some may have even once been homeowners themselves and happily undertake minor DIY to a good standard on their rental property ( with their LL's consent)

As Artful points out, that T who starts off with a well paid job could be in receipt of benefits a few weeks later. This view of LHA recipients all being irresponsible rent dodgers who trash properties is pepetuated by those with a Daily Mail Reader outlook on life.

There are rent dodgers & house trashers in most walks of life, often where you'd least expect it.