Tenant on Housing Benefit

jamie11

Hump wrote: »

Before you write to the mortgage company consider this (others will have different experiences).
Now you sound skint at present and the likelihood of the mortgage company finding out about your breach of your mortgage agreement is pretty slim, you might want to consider waiting.....

I agree, the last thing you need right now is the mortgage company breathing down your neck. Thousands of others are in the same boat so it's probably best to keep schtum at present, at least until you are rid of this particular tenant, then make an application before getting another tenant.

BUT make sure you keep paying the mortgage because if you don't all this will come back and bite you.

Alias_Omega

Hi OP,

Do you understand the deductions from the rental income you receive?

Did you know that only the mortgage interest can be taken out of the rental income, and not capital & interest?



I ask this, as many a work colleague that has rented i have had to explain all this.

Alias

each_uisge

cashbackproblems wrote: »

my dad has btl's and would never rent to housing benefit people, most are lower class people and dont look after the property.

Oh my:eek: What a sweeping statement to make - I'm horrified at your assumptions regarding those who claim HB.

You may do well to remember that one day you could be in that position.

zaksmum

We have a friend who has several rental properties and sadly he too now has a new rule...NEVER let to housing benefit tenants.

Rent is paid directly to them and they pay NOTHING to him for 2 months. They say they lost the money, they were mugged, or tough, mate, I spent it down the pub.

This has happened in EVERY single case that he's let to a HB tenant. It seems to be one of the perks for them at the moment. Get a 6 month tenancy which gives you a minimum of a grand extra spending money at 2 months of £500 a month, then move on to the next property where you can do the same thing.

In fact it's considered a blessing by our friend if he gets any rent at all after the first two months - in one property the tenant stayed for a year, didn't pay a single penny in rent, cost him court fees etc then trashed the place before he moved out!

THAT'S why he will never again accept a HB tenant.

jjj1980

I can't believe just how many horror stories there are out there of people taking a private rental whilst on housing benefit with no intention of passing the money on to the landlord!!

I used to be in a private rental, although I was in fulltime employment at the time and the rent was my priority bill. Now my situation is completely different: on housing benefit and in a council rent until I get my divorce sorted, get back to work, clear the debts my ex caused etc. I would do anything to still being my old house, or one very similar but know that due to the actions of some very unscrupulous people, there would only be a very tiny minority of landlords willing to allow me to rent their house. Wouldn't matter that I would be happy for them to do regular inspections to assure themselves it was being looked after, etc.

I completely understand why there has to be careful checks put in place to protect the landlords investment and do agree with them to a point, just feel that its a real shame that honest tenants wouldn't even get considered because of their benefit status.

dancingfairy

Have you checked for a break clause? they are fairly standard I think at the 6 month point (or later) into a 1 year tenancy.
IF there is one but for the tenant only you may be able to argue that the tenancy agreement is inheritantly unfair but then that would raise questions of why you (or your agents) signed a contract that gave the other side better rights (rather than equal rights) - it's worth checking out though even if it helps in the future rather than right now but do check.
df

Caveat_Mortgagor

Some wild misconceptions about HB on this thread. Kicked off I have to say by the OP. The title is 'Tenant on HB', but her problem is a bad tenant. The fact the tenant claims housing benefit is completely irrelevant.

There are many families on low incomes that get a housing benefit to help pay a part of their rent, as well as some out of work who get all of their rent paid up to certain (generous) thresholds.

To give you an idea of the scale of the number of people on HB, i'll share something with you.

Driven by the fact that I know quite a few people on housing benefit, and they all seem to pay a disproportionately high rent for their income and quality of housing, I put in a freedom of information request to my local council this year. I was startled by the results.

The city I live in has about 120k homes. I believe the national average for home ownership is around 70%. If thats the same in my city, then 84k are owned and 36k are rented.

Council told me that there were 28k live claims for HB in April this year, and that in the last financial year Housing Benefit cost them £122, 505, 073!!!

So my best guess is that 3 out of every 4 rentals is supported in some way by housing benefit. And funding it costs the equivalent of £1000 per year for every household in the city.

Housing benefit is a huge part of the rental market, in fact i would go so far as to say the market is hugely dependant on it. The fact that some people have rented out to bad tenants is because they didnt vet them properly.

If they think that somone is automatically a bad tenant because they claim HB, then they havent identified the true problem.

DannyboyMidlands

So in the blue corner we have a landlord who was too greedy to knock a few grand off the asking price and saw renting as the easy option while the market "gets back to normal". In the red corner we have the scrounging, dishonest single mum.

Not sure I have much sympathy for either party.

zaksmum

DannyboyMidlands wrote: »

So in the blue corner we have a landlord who was too greedy to knock a few grand off the asking price and saw renting as the easy option while the market "gets back to normal". In the red corner we have the scrounging, dishonest single mum.

Not sure I have much sympathy for either party.

I can't imagine ANYONE seeing renting as "the easy option" these days Danny.

skintsue

Hi
A very quick update on the situation.
The tenant has been arrested. The Letting agents are arranging for their solicitors to apply for an emergency eviction order on Monday.
Any ideas how long it will be before the notice is up to get out. They were very cagey.