Tennant on benefits

amalis

Dear all,

First time i decided to let my small flat without using the agency and a few people showed interest, but most of them are on housing benefits. I spoke to one woman who is a single mother and partly on receiving housing benefits. I dont have any experience with that, my friends sayings saying that it is not safe. Can anyone advice me something?
Thanks!

Fire_Fox

Have you worked through the relevant sections of the Tenancies in Eng/ Wales: Guide for landlords and tenants 'sticky' at the top of the main page of this board?

Cakeguts

amalis wrote: »

Dear all,

First time i decided to let my small flat without using the agency and a few people showed interest, but most of them are on housing benefits. I spoke to one woman who is a single mother and partly on receiving housing benefits. I dont have any experience with that, my friends sayings saying that it is not safe. Can anyone advice me something?
Thanks!

This is happening because it is difficult for people to find rented accommodation if they claim housing benefits. What you need to be able to do is to work out which of those people are people who have been evicted from social housing for anti social behaviour, from private rented housing for non payment of rent and who are now considered intentionally homeless by the council who will not house them and those who would make a really good tenant for you.



There are some landlords who specialise in this type of business and who can work out who to take for each property. If you don't specialise in this business it might be a good idea to get an agent again.

mchale

amalis wrote: »

Can anyone advice me something?
Thanks!

Get tenant to get a guarantor

DoaM

amalis wrote: »

Can anyone advice me something?
Thanks!

You don't have the experience to "go it alone", so don't try to unless you're willing to accept the hassle that comes with it (in order to gain such experience)?

tacpot12

As per cakeguts' post, you need to understand why they are looking for somewhere new to live. I would definitely talk to their current landlord. Alarm bells should ring if the prospective tenants are reluctant to give you their current landlord's details.

It would be worth checking whether they are on Housing Benefit (HB) or receiving Universal Credit (UC) and the Housing element within UC. If they are HB, then there is a risk that at some point the tenant will have to move to UC and they will have a gap of about six weeks when they will have no income to pay the rent. There isn't much to be done about this, but you could ask the tenant to let you know when if they ever have to move onto UC. At that point, you could ask the tenant to ask for an advance on their UC, or you could agree that you won't chase payment for six weeks.

The tenant can ask for the UC housing element to be paid directly to you. While this might seem like a good idea, I think that tenants might be less likely to pay their portion of the rent if they know you have had some money. I would be happier if the tenant was responsible for paying me the whole rent, on time, every month.

FreeBear

tacpot12 wrote: »

The tenant can ask for the UC housing element (or HB) to be paid directly to you.

The downside to this is if they are engaged in benefit fraud, the DWP can and will claw back direct payments from the landlord.

Don't be too hasty in rejecting potential tenants on benefits - Many of them (the majority ?) will pay the rent on time even if it means having to cut back on expenditure elsewhere.

amalis

The lady who is interested said she want to m9ve from 1 bed to 2 bed property because her daughter need her own room and she can get a guarantor. She is also happy to pay the deposit.

lookstraightahead

If you are relying on friends advice then I think you need to gen up on going it alone before you get anyone - not just (heavens forbid) single mums.

G_M

If you are going to manage a letting, at leest lern how to spel 'tenant'.

dotchas

We have a lovely tenant with 2 kids who is employed as a nurse but gets partial HB. As a result of this she was finding it near impossible to find a property when her previous landlord was selling up.
One potential upside is that they are more likely to be long term tenants because they know how difficult it can be finding elsewhere.
Careful referencing is important and maybe a guarantor.