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No DSS tenants

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Comments

  • Hasbeen said:
    Landlords may now be unable to state no DHS etc in adverts, but at the end of the day when background checks/references from employer/paylines etc are taken into account they will go for who they deem the most able to afford the rent.
    I sort of get this. The same applies with employment - lots of employers discriminate unlawfully. However the threat of legal action has forced employers to being more open. Can the average small time landlord afford to defend a discrimination claim from a potential tenant?
  • 7 day you'll be aware MOST UK adults get benefits.
  • Hasbeen said:
    Landlords may now be unable to state no DHS etc in adverts, but at the end of the day when background checks/references from employer/paylines etc are taken into account they will go for who they deem the most able to afford the rent.
    I sort of get this. The same applies with employment - lots of employers discriminate unlawfully. However the threat of legal action has forced employers to being more open. Can the average small time landlord afford to defend a discrimination claim from a potential tenant?
    The last  time I advertised  my flat I had seventeen applicants.  I have to turn sixteen of them away.  So they all sue me for discrimination?  I have to chose someone!  

    In the end I chose the young couple whose original request to view was polite and where they told me a bit about themselves; where they provided the extra information I asked for straight away; and where they seemed keen and really wanted the flat..  (Obviously they passed all the credit checks and references too; in fact they provided more referencing than I had asked for). 
    I used to be seven-day-weekend
  • 7 day you'll be aware MOST UK adults get benefits.
    Like who? My son and his partner don't. 
    I used to be seven-day-weekend
  • Cakeguts
    Cakeguts Posts: 7,627 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    This is what it feels like to a landlord who isn't getting paid rent. 
    You put your life savings into a bank. That bank says our savings interest rate is X%.  One year the bank says we have decided not to pay you any interest without warning and they do that for 9 months.   I think most people would be a bit annoyed and would withdraw their savings immediately from that bank and find one that didn't do that kind of thing. 
    What would people do if the bank as well as deciding not to pay interest for 9 months on a whim then also said that they were going to withdraw a sum of money in £1000s from your savings account because they wanted to and there was nothing you can do about it.

    Both of these are risks that private landlords run everytime they let a property.  However if a working tenant doesn't pay the rent you can sometimes get it through an attachment to earnings after they have been evicted by the court. If you are letting to someone who is relying on benefits to pay the rent then you are unlikely to see any of that money.

    It shouldn't be the responsibility of private individuals many of whom are not wealthy to take these risks.  Risks like these should be taken by social housing providers but even they will not house someone who is a repeat non rent payer and who is always in arrears.  Those people who are evicted from social housing for anti social behaviour and significant rent arrears end up in the private rented sector.  Basically no one wants them as tenants. Private landlords don't want them and social landlords don't want them.  They are all going to benefit claimants because they have come from social housing.  Those people have caused the no housing benefits in the adverts of most landlords.  When someone turns up to rent a house owned by an ordinary person no one can tell whether they have been evicted from social housing for non rent payment or anti social behaviour or any other reason.  All the letting agents know is that there is a higher risk because of these particular people in letting to people claiming benefits.  There are landlords whose business model specialises in letting to people claiming housing benefit but they will also own particular types of properties in particular areas. 

    There will not be a higher number of properties available to rent for people paying the rent with Universal Credit. They will all just fail the affordability checks.  In fact it could work the other way with landlords being extra careful who the let to which in fact will reduce the number of properties available to people wanting to use Universal Credit to pay the rent with screening out of anyone who doesn't fit a very narrow affordability criteria.  Because there are now no fees paid by tenants to rent a property it is likely that more people will try to get houses that they can't afford in which case there will be more attention to where the rent money is coming from. 
  • Marvel1
    Marvel1 Posts: 7,461 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    edited 29 February 2020 at 10:42AM
    What the government should be doing is scrapping the right to buy, leaving them for people who need it and build more social housing.

    Also increase the penatly for not protecting the deposit from 3x to 5x - you want the business then get it right.
  • HRH_MUngo said:
    Hasbeen said:
    Landlords may now be unable to state no DHS etc in adverts, but at the end of the day when background checks/references from employer/paylines etc are taken into account they will go for who they deem the most able to afford the rent.
    I sort of get this. The same applies with employment - lots of employers discriminate unlawfully. However the threat of legal action has forced employers to being more open. Can the average small time landlord afford to defend a discrimination claim from a potential tenant?
    The last  time I advertised  my flat I had seventeen applicants.  I have to turn sixteen of them away.  So they all sue me for discrimination?  I have to chose someone!  

    In the end I chose the young couple whose original request to view was polite and where they told me a bit about themselves; where they provided the extra information I asked for straight away; and where they seemed keen and really wanted the flat..  (Obviously they passed all the credit checks and references too; in fact they provided more referencing than I had asked for). 
    And the landlord with 17 applicants is probably pretty safe. The landlord who has been advertising for 3 weeks, doesnt meet the single mother, asylum applicant, member of a disadvantaged minority? I wouldn't be so sure. And thats assuming that the landlord is smart enough not to say or write anything incriminating. Some are not...
  • Cakeguts
    Cakeguts Posts: 7,627 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    We have had a house to let recently where the next door neighbour works night shifts and sleeps during the day so we automatically turned down anyone who had multiple children or who wanted to become a student again in case they disturbed him. Is that discrimination?  In that situation we would not be letting to someone who didn't work under any circumstances in case they annoyed the neighbour.  The neighbour is also a private tenant but we are not their landlord. This is just polite to do this. 

    There are multiple reasons as to why a landlord does not want to let to someone with 3 children or to someone who is not working. Not just the Universal Credit one.
  • HRH_MUngo
    HRH_MUngo Posts: 877 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 500 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 29 February 2020 at 1:32PM
    HRH_MUngo said:
    Hasbeen said:
    Landlords may now be unable to state no DHS etc in adverts, but at the end of the day when background checks/references from employer/paylines etc are taken into account they will go for who they deem the most able to afford the rent.
    I sort of get this. The same applies with employment - lots of employers discriminate unlawfully. However the threat of legal action has forced employers to being more open. Can the average small time landlord afford to defend a discrimination claim from a potential tenant?
    The last  time I advertised  my flat I had seventeen applicants.  I have to turn sixteen of them away.  So they all sue me for discrimination?  I have to chose someone!  

    In the end I chose the young couple whose original request to view was polite and where they told me a bit about themselves; where they provided the extra information I asked for straight away; and where they seemed keen and really wanted the flat..  (Obviously they passed all the credit checks and references too; in fact they provided more referencing than I had asked for). 
    And the landlord with 17 applicants is probably pretty safe. The landlord who has been advertising for 3 weeks, doesnt meet the single mother, asylum applicant, member of a disadvantaged minority? I wouldn't be so sure. And thats assuming that the landlord is smart enough not to say or write anything incriminating. Some are not...
    Even so, I would still want someone who could afford the rent and who passes the referencing.
    I used to be seven-day-weekend
  • A_Lert said:
    Since these cases were settled out of court no legal precedent has been set. But the writing is on the wall - these two landlords were spooked into paying compensation after all.
    When this discrimination is established as unlawful, it is my understanding that the terms in existing mortgage and insurance contracts demanding it will become unenforceable.
    Affordability has never been the issue. A great many landlords refuse to rent to people claiming benefits because of stereotypes about how those people are likely to behave. And those landlords have been quite happy to hide behind "oh the mortgage says it".
    Interesting point.  We are pensioners who rent.  A couple of years ago we spoke to a letting agent about a house that was affordable, we have 2 state pensions and 3 works pensions between us.  We explained we needed some top up LHA and were concerned about the “no DHSS” rule.  We were told that the “no DHSS” rule didn’t apply to pensioners. :).  Nothing was said about insurance and mortgage companies not allowing it.  

    On this occasion it would seem that stereotyping can work for you rather than against you.
    This is why terms such as "no DSS" and "no DHSS" are pointless.  When advertised as such it's not a blanket ban on all benefits.  Some are deemed as being ok such as child benefit, tax credits, state pension, winter fuel allowance.  Often it's not even a ban on housing benefit it's really a ban on unemployed tenants who are not working but are of working age and fit to work because many landlord insurance policies do not cover letting to unemployed people who could work but are not.  The same policies do cover tenants who are are either retired or in receipt of disability benefits.  Direct Line would be one example but there are others.
    https://www.directlineforbusiness.co.uk/landlord-insurance

    That said, if a retired person or someone on disability benefits only had the local housing allowance rate of housing benefit and no means to top it up, it will still make the majority of private rental properties unaffordable for them.

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