I am sorry I do not think you can discriminate about someone being on DSS or not. Good people are good people and bad people are bad people. Lots of people can be on DSS for lots of reasons which does not make them a less reliable person than those who are holding down a steady job. You can do all the checks you want but if you get a bad egg then you get a bad egg which goes for a working person or DSS.
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Do not deny them outright. Say nothing that can be dangerous. If they arrive with another person ,then you need someone with you.
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She could sell with you in-situ it depends how quickly she wants to sell and what she needs to achieve.
Estate agents have investors on their books and there are auctions whereby property is often sold with tenants in residence. Some investors prefer to buy with tenant in place.
Other problem could potentially be that the new landlord might have other plans for the property and you could be asked to leave anyway. Hope it goes your way.
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I have learnt from this site that some people have pre-screening questions for prospective tenants.
You say what you need their income to be to cover their rent.
You can ask how many people will be living there. i.e. if they are a couple on benefits the Housing Benefit will not pay for a couple in a partnership to be over accommodated with anything over one bedroom.
There is a Local Housing Allowance so same scenario, if you are renting out a luxury apartment that is obviously more expensive, there will be a cap on what the Housing Benefit department will pay.
You can look up on your council’s website to see the maximum amount for the number of occupants and the bedroom allowance.
Colin has a very comprehensive, never ending pre-application questionnaire!
You can weed people out this way.
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Really sorry to read about this. I can’t believe tenant arrears etc were not taken into account or that the bogus building company were not properly investigated as it seems you found information easy enough! I take it you didn’t do a reference check to check for tenant suitability/electoral roll etc?
You can’t refuse DSS/UC but with proper reference and credit checks this should show, I would hope, those who have had a trustworthy past and pass the affordability criteria?
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There is another question on here right now on which David has posted his pre-screening questionnaire.
Thank you. That’s good advice.
I completely agree Julia. Each person is unique and many deserving people need a little help.
That’s why I have been considering people so far. Any then you hear one of these stories and you realise you don’t have the capacity (funds/mental health) to cope if it happens. And you wonder if it’s worth the risk. That’s just a reality and very rarely is it fair.
Anyway I plan to keep an open mind.
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Agee, Daniel37.
It can happen in any circumstances. But I hadn’t quite registered the issues raised with the deposit (owed to council), or the dilapidation issue or the fact people can use free legal aid (and no win no fee solicitors are out for the kill not fairness).
In over 10 yrs as a landlord and having only rented outside the DSS system, my experience has been good so far. We shall see about the future…
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Most landlords are not buying at the moment, in fact a lot are selling because of all the hate towards the PRS by everyone including the government, making their lives hell.
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I would love to see the goverment and local councils in trouble, if all landlords sold and they could not re home everyone. Squirm , squirm. Social housing assoc. are owed millions
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Outside the DSS for me !!
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I think she needs to recoup her money. Her and her ex cant afford.to buy each other out so it’s going up for.sale. hopefully with us in situ
I would like to see the figures of government subsidy for social housing by local authority and housing associations.then compare that to PRS landlords who do not get a penny of subsidy but instead are being penalised by not even being able to offset their finance costs. Lets have a level playing field because we are all in this together, the latest phrase the government likes to throw about.
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Same iv recieved part time wage and part time uc. I never missed a payment in my life. I think working or not working people can still hit problems or stop paying ppl like that should be blacklisted so you know if there a bad payer to avoid others allowing them in. If people ruin it for them selfs then more fool the… its annoying as it ruins it for us honest ppl that need a home.
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Hi All, I’ve been a private landlord for over 25 years so have seen / experienced most things in the PRS, including being invited by my local Council to be part of a working committee to set up / improve PRS in my local area and start a voluntary Accreditation scheme.
I like to think I set high standards and provide great housing that I would be happy to live in as the accreditation scheme put in place 15 + years ago are many of the National standards adopted now. I say all this so you get a feel for what I do, not to blow my own trumpet 
I have never taken benefit tenants until one of my sitting tenants applied and, I have to say it’s been a nightmare. Over £4000 in arrears and only now am I receiving payment directly. It appears a tenant can place a dispute on their ‘account’ without proof or any good reason, to stop direct payments even after the 2 months minimum rule, which is what mine did. And of course, the Council call the tenant their client and support their ‘client’…not you. I went up the food chain in the Department and got an intelligent human who understood that I was housing this person free of charge, as they had been in receipt of benefits long before they became in arrears so have been pocketing the money [ my money as a taxpayer ] so double whammy for a landlord. This person removed the ‘dispute’ as I had been sending arrears invoices to the tenant monthly so could support with evidence, the arrears.
The second benefits problem I currently have is a similar story so I won’t bore you with the details but sufficient to say you will most definitely be the loser. I know this is a generalisation and that there are good tenants receiving benefits, but it’s the same for us landlords…good ones are ‘tarred by the same brush’ as bad landlords. There are fewer bad landlords than bad tenants…
As I discussed with my contact in the benefits department and she agreed, PRS landlords are treated like the enemy. The Gov’t and Council’s cannot house everyone nor do they want to, but they impose burdens on private landlords that do not apply to Social Housing. I played a bit of ‘brinkmanship’ and said, ok won’t pay the mortgage and the lender can evict tenant & sell up. Tenant homeless, but pay me directly and that leaves tenant in situ. I would break even in a forced sale situation and not be suffering as Sally7 currently is. Risky, but that did the trick; dispute removed.
Even if you are in the right AND can prove it, do not think the law is on your side. That applies not just to the PRS. Sally7 I wish you better health and can only suggest you also ask the Police as maybe fraud has been committed by the building company? Also does HMRC need to know about them? GOOD LUCK
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Sorry to hear and sharing your experience.
I had once experience many years when I had a bad experience with professional tenant and then I had interest from the tenant who was local and said she lost the job and on benefit and applying for a new job. I had a good reference from previous landlord and got credit checked all ok.
But then she later got her boyfriend moved in and I told her that he cannot because tenancy was under her name and and started causing problems and I gave her notice to leave at end of 10months before at the end of the year as I did not want to renew the tenancy contract.
So I had to go through the court and I represented by myself. She had her free representative because she was in benefit and she lied on one thing that I did not give her prescribed information for tenant.
In meantime she lied and and she did a fraud landlord’s reference under my name and I found out through council.
The reason was that this tenant decided to rent another flat in the same development and the new landlord make enquiry. So the lady in council knew me as she was aware that it was not my style of writing reference and case was in court for eviction.
But what shocked me that judge did not want to hear that she did a landlord regency fraud and telling me I did not provide the prescribed information for tenant copy.
I lost the case and he lawyer charged me a big bill for his time as he thought he could make money from me as I was representing my self.
I took my lawyers advice and he told me that other lawyers cannot charge that much and you don’t need to agree and pay that much.
I instructed my lawyer from was a big reputable company and he sent letter to her lawyers and even paying to my lawyer it cost me less to pay her lawyers fees.
Also at the end she said she was not going to leave when I sent her second eviction notice so I told to her to face that she might win once but not second time from me because she did a fraud.
Then she left a night before and I deducted money from deposit and to remove her old sofa etc
So learnt from that case
1)that always get all signed documents by all parties before giving the keys of the property
2) if in doubt about check references by yourself too
As it does not matter if tenants and dss or professional
The reason is that there are professional crooked and rouge dss tenants.
We have to follow our head and not by heart all the time should not feel sorry as this is a business and our hard work like any other profession/work as no protection for private landlords.
But sad thing is that government and council will never understand that this private rental is another small business who provide accommodation to tenants and councils/government don’t provide.
I had 2 bad experience of professional crooks tenants and one of them was a young entrepreneur who gave a business talk at the conservative conference and ruined my property and not paid rent.
So as we as landlords need to share our experience and learn from each other experience and knowledge.
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No Dss . NO dss. NO dss
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quite right daniel. however statistically you get more problems with DSS, thats a fact. tenants who are medically unfit tend to be a better bet, they are not in that situation by choice.
DSS tenants tend to get strong support from the councils and in the courts tend to get the sympathy vote and the benefit of the doubt. The burden of proof is very much on the landlord. I have had so many DSS tenants who will lie to your face and just say anything, you just do a double take and think what have i got here?.
To deal with a situation like this one its time to think outside the box. Pay them to get out is one way. Gaining access… well you can enter in an emergency such as someone reporting smoke coming out. you have inventory photos from the start and can take some more when you are inside. Boiler services must be done. You could write a formal complaint to the council, that takes up time and resources, they don’t like that.
this case its the worst i ever heard of. I once had to pay £8.5k to get a tenant out and another time was fined 3x deposit because i was 3 days late bonding the deposit. (I was moving house and MyDeposits website was down for some of the time though they never admitted it)
Some Judges just get off on applying heavy penalties, not all, but for some its an ego trip. Conclusions arrived at by judges vary hugely with no rhyme nor reason. The law is a lottery in reality however it is expensive and some solicitors know how to charge especially some of the bottom feeders mentioned above.
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Hi Sally,
Do not beat yourself up too much. All landlords have fallen into this trap and been bitten badly.
Very few people realise the root cause of the current situation is the Government, in particular the Tories. They forced through the privatisation of social housing by selling off social houses.
Then when they found themselves in trouble with lack of housing for those in need, they spun private landlords as ‘Rogue Landlords’, ‘Slum landlords’, etc.
Which empowered the politicians and some DSS customers.
Us socially minded landlords thought this was a phase the government was going through, but no it persists to this day!
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