Private Landlords

silvercar

I pay approx £50 more for building insurance on a property with a tenant reliant on HB.
House is kept clean and tidy, there was an issue years ago with the rent not being paid, since then the council pay be direct.
Swings and roundabouts - the rent is slightly lower than I could probably get from a new, earning tenant, but the rent is paid directly on time, no risks of voids.

sweetsand

mattyprice4004 said:

sweetsand said:

mattyprice4004 said:

poppy12345 said:

mattyprice4004 said:

poppy12345 said:

sweetsand said:

Grumpy_chap said:

sweetsand said:

none of us have students, those out of work or the self employed, 

These groups, taken as a whole, are no more or less likely to be bad tenants than the population at large.  Indeed, sometimes, they can be more grateful for a good property and good landlord, given the extent of prejudice against them.

avoid, avoid, avoid those out of work,

Really? and why? I've not been able to work for many years because of a disability and i privately rent, never owed any landlords any rent in more than 10 years of privately renting. I take pride in my home and pay from my own pocket to make my home the best i can make it and yet we are all tarred with the same old dirty brush. I have a cat, that i paid extra for to my landlord so i could take him with me. He doesn't scratch walls, or use the toilet anywhere but his little tray. If you came into my home you wouldn't know i have a cat.

I've reported 5 issues with my house in 7 months and i'm still waiting for someone to come to sort out the issues. These range from cracks in 3 ceilings, broken and very unsafe decking in the garden and drafty windows that i can hear outside inside but i still continue to wait...

Lets not just tar those that can't work but think of the LL's that choose not to do repairs when needed, that don't look after the good tenants like they really should.

LL's that refuse those claiming benefits make me sick...

So you’d like us not to tar all benefits tenants with the same brush, but then you do the same to landlords?

Hmmmm

I've had several different landlords spaced over 19 years and i've yet to find a decent one...

That’s unfortunate, but does that mean we all deserve to be tarred with the same brush?
You are complaining about landlords doing EXACTLY what you’re doing - assuming the worst. 

When the boiler broke in my rental property I made the 15 mile journey at 9pm (about an hour after being told by the tenant) in awful weather last winter to drop off 4x electric heaters and helped the tenant set them up, and returned at 11am the next day with the parts to fix it. 

I’ve had bad tenants too, but I have the grace and mental fortitude to appreciate they’re not all bad. 

It may be wise for you to adopt a similar mindset  

Great post. Sadly many T's forget that there are many good LL's just like T's.
Recently we had a brandnew bathroom suite completed in a rented apartment the plastic bath cracked - we did not question it as the T's appear good a professional couple - bath was cut into the wall and basin over it - we had the whole suite repalced top to bottom having expalined to the T it would be more cost effective and they would get a brandnew bathroom with shower - all completed within 4 days and now a flash steel bath and T's very happy and we won't increase their rent for the third year.
In other properties, we have a repairs gurantee on boilers etc  - but some make statments like Poppy tarnish all LL's with a negative brush.

But apparently we're all money grabbing, non-repairing thieves because of this one person's experience... but we can't call benefit claimants out for the same thing, despite the fact I've had personal experience with a nightmare benefits tenant.
Go figure  

It's good to see another landlord out there who takes their responsibilities seriously - and good on you for having a top-notch bathroom fitted when you'll not really see the benefit. 
We're not all bad; evidently there are bad landlords out there - but there's also bad tenants. 

My tenants were keen to fix costs, so they've got a 5 year fixed-price tenancy - possibly a little short sighted on my part, but they're a hard-working couple and I felt they deserved some stability in terms of cost and a long lease. 

Many thanks for the like minded great post from one of the many other caring LL's!!
The 5 year teanncy - I see where you are coming from but when one moves our most places will need a tidy up, clean up and paint all round on the walls as all of ours are white paint and wodden floors bar the stairs. We do'n do white goods bar the fride in the apartment. Therefore, it will be a piece of mind for 5 years and no letting fees, vacant periods, you hope.

Our rents are slightly lower now they've not been rasied for a couple of years. One of them, bless his soul always needs remiding to de weed the drive and cut the hedge it's all in their contract and he does it when told/reminded.

Thanks again

sweetsand

silvercar said:

I pay approx £50 more for building insurance on a property with a tenant reliant on HB.
House is kept clean and tidy, there was an issue years ago with the rent not being paid, since then the council pay be direct.
Swings and roundabouts - the rent is slightly lower than I could probably get from a new, earning tenant, but the rent is paid directly on time, no risks of voids.

I think that was one of the main problems, not being paid rent direct as you see many stories or here about them how the T's spend that money. IMO, if the gov made it law to to pay the rent direct to LL's thouse who were on benefits, we may consider it but defo no pets, students and self employed. Even with those out of work, I'd be hesitant to take someone on that had been out of work for more than 3 months as in london you could easily get a job before covid if you were willing to work and able to.

TBH, I never wanted to work but my OH loves it and this is why he did not leave at 50 but the ironic thing is i worked since leaving uni and during as we knew that to have the nicer things in life you had to work and be prudent with ones money and don't do loans other than poss a mortgage.

sweetsand

silvercar said:

I pay approx £50 more for building insurance on a property with a tenant reliant on HB.
House is kept clean and tidy, there was an issue years ago with the rent not being paid, since then the council pay be direct.
Swings and roundabouts - the rent is slightly lower than I could probably get from a new, earning tenant, but the rent is paid directly on time, no risks of voids.

I am please for you. I'm sure it won't happen but lets say they trashed your property and in london builders are expensive and then you get the void and the stress, who would pay the 5/10k to put the house right? What realistic recouse would you have for someone out of work on benefits? 
50 pounds is 50 pounds on top of risk as mentioned above.

silvercar

sweetsand said:

silvercar said:

I pay approx £50 more for building insurance on a property with a tenant reliant on HB.
House is kept clean and tidy, there was an issue years ago with the rent not being paid, since then the council pay be direct.
Swings and roundabouts - the rent is slightly lower than I could probably get from a new, earning tenant, but the rent is paid directly on time, no risks of voids.

I am please for you. I'm sure it won't happen but lets say they trashed your property and in london builders are expensive and then you get the void and the stress, who would pay the 5/10k to put the house right? What realistic recouse would you have for someone out of work on benefits? 
50 pounds is 50 pounds on top of risk as mentioned above.

Anyone could trash a property, I don’t know this tenant would do that anymore than any other, it’s been their home for over a decade. Tenants reliant on benefits are less likely to move on, as they will find it that much harder to find another decent property!

p00hsticks

sweetsand said:

What realistic recouse would you have for someone out of work on benefits?

Many people on benefits these days aren't out of work - they're either on non-means tested benefits like PIP or on relatively low wages and on benefits like working tax credit (the clue is in the name), child tax credits, Universal Credit or doing permitted work while on ESA.    

sweetsand

silvercar said:

sweetsand said:

silvercar said:

I pay approx £50 more for building insurance on a property with a tenant reliant on HB.
House is kept clean and tidy, there was an issue years ago with the rent not being paid, since then the council pay be direct.
Swings and roundabouts - the rent is slightly lower than I could probably get from a new, earning tenant, but the rent is paid directly on time, no risks of voids.

I am please for you. I'm sure it won't happen but lets say they trashed your property and in london builders are expensive and then you get the void and the stress, who would pay the 5/10k to put the house right? What realistic recouse would you have for someone out of work on benefits? 
50 pounds is 50 pounds on top of risk as mentioned above.

Anyone could trash a property, I don’t know this tenant would do that anymore than any other, it’s been their home for over a decade. Tenants reliant on benefits are less likely to move on, as they will find it that much harder to find another decent property!

For sure they could but as per my post you referred to, you have more recourse if they have savings, good income.
I forgot in my other posts that we'd never take anyone on with CJJ's outstanding or not as the insurance does not cover them and i could never trust them. If anyone else wants to take them on, they are welcome. We tell the letting agent what twe are not looking for as above and previous psots and they ask us if we want to meet them we always say not as we trsut our letting agent.

nicechap

Jeremy535897 said:

silvercar said:

Jeremy535897 said:

Unfortunately I doubt that the mortgage and insurance companies that don't allow tenants on benefits will change policy any time soon. 

Actually NatWest wrote to me earlier in the year to say they will now accept landlords having tenants reliant on benefit income.
"Tenants on benefits" is a wide group of people, a lot of people receive pension credits or child benefit; to exclude them all as potential tenants would be heavily limiting your market.

Interesting. Most buy to let mortgages forbade them, or rather forbade tenants on housing benefit (child benefit is obviously not an issue). I am not sure whether the rent protection insurance products cover tenants on housing or other means tested benefits. The change to housing benefit (paying it to claimants rather than landlords) made it much harder for tenants claiming housing benefit to get tenancies, for obvious reasons (at least obvious to everyone but government).

The change in approach may have been triggered by a recent case concerning discrimination against tenants on benefits. See:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn07008/

Interesting read.  

Unbelievable to think that some believe it is acceptable to discriminate against disabled people on the basis of their benefit entitlement.

Grumpy_chap

sweetsand said:

we  were busy spending too much on cars 

It is good that you realised spending vast amounts on cars is not good "money saving" sense.  I just wonder what cars you had before you came to your senses and got the boring, sensible cars you have now?
Golf R
Range Rover
911
Mercedes S Class

rubble2

I have no direct experience of landlords/renting as I have always been an owner/occupier but my daughter and her family are in a private rented property. It is an old house (maybe 1920's build) they have been there over 18 months both working and rent paid promptly every month but getting the landlord to carry out any repairs is a nightmare. They have just this week had the oven replaced which hadn't worked properly since they moved in. The land lord is also 'promising' to address the damp issues they have which up to now he has always blamed on their 'Lifestyle'
When they first moved in they reported that the outside wall to the rear of the property was unstable and in danger of falling - it is the boundary with the pavement so lots of pedestrians passing by, again this has been promised to be looked at but nothing has happened.

When the landlord visited to 'inspect' the oven and the damp problems they mentioned the wall again as they are quite worried about it - his response was ' I have only been here ten minutes and I have already spent £500, we will look at the wall later'