You’ve got to set it depending on all the circumstances x28 and a guarantor etc, versus x30 and no guarantor and so on. You don’t seem to get that in mitigation of possible claims against you for discrimination against affordability and housing benefit tenants. It’s frankly a bit thick.
A dozen thumbs up. But we are wasting our breathe , until someone more interesting comes on here I just googled “is renting a business?” End of. Got to go out now Ducks are trying to build a nest on my pond , the cat will get any young , so I have to chase them . Now THAT IS more worthwhile
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Speaking personally, I would never accept a guarantor in lieu of what I see as an acceptable income. A guarantor is meant as a last resort and some letting agents put a higher multiplier on a guarantor because the guarantor has to be able to pay their own living costs plus potentially the applicants.
You keep bringing this back to discrimination against benefit tenants and that is not what this is. Affordability is something that’s built into the financial framework of this country. If landlords started offering rentals to applicants with 20x rental as income, in a few years time you can bet there will be a whole new ppi type claim for ‘irresponsible landlords’. When applying for a mortgage, a lender has to apply a criteria as a ‘responsible lender’, in the same way, a landlord has to be responsible and that’s all there is to it.
Would you call a mortgage lender discriminatory because they won’t lend you £300k to buy a house even though you can demonstrate you can afford the mortgage payments?
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Is the post above seriously saying that you’ll refuse a tenant who has no income but a bank balance of £1m and wants to pay all rent in advance for however long staying, so failing the x30 requirement. And you won’t let to them based on this stringent x30 criteria.
So you’ll treat the benefit tenant who has much less than x30 earnings and apply that rule to them instead so even though they may have an ability to pay on all circumstances.
The way to avoid discriminating against benefit tenants is to say I’ll look at all their circumstances in ability to pay as well as someone in full time work on x30. That way you don’t fall foul of the legislation that you cannot discriminate by saying no dss and de facto discrimination by saying x30 requirement stringently, which has to be the same thing as nobody on benefits can earn x30 most average rental properties.
Those last three words are your problem. No one can demand the right to be housed in an area that is unaffordable for them. The numbers you are throwing around are double what you would pay for a 2 bed house where I am… and if you’re on benefits you’d have the same income to cover that. Easy peasy.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that you spent a considerable length of time in your previous rental likely with rent at below market value while everything increased in price around you. Yours is not the first moan we’ve heard about that on these forums and I sympathise but there’s nothing you can do to change that. Focus on what you can control. You can control finding a place to live in an area that is more affordable. You can’t control the local market in your area and never will.
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Last sentence. You don’t earn benefits…
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Please highlight where I said anything remotely close to what you’re saying here. There’s quite a bit to unpack in this one statement but I really cannot be bothered to be honest.
Again, you’re completely missing the point, and it’s hardly comparable to an applicant with £1m in the bank is it?
You keep saying a benefits tenant with ‘much less than x30 income’. As a responsible landlord, yes I would reject them, however, my reason would be that they have ‘much less than 30x income’, NOT because they are on benefits.
In your earlier posts you say you have savings - now, UC has a limit of £16k savings and anything above £6k will affect the amount of UC you receive, so even if you had sufficient savings to pay a years rent upfront, that’s not much comfort to a landlord who is going to wonder where the rent will come from after the initial years rent is up and you need to start paying monthly, which brings me back to the need to be a responsible landlord.
You’re being extremely pig headed in not realising that you are in the wrong - you are effectively saying that if I go to a landlord that is renting out a £3,500 per month property but I only earn £5,000 per month, if the landlord doesn’t consider me he’s discriminating against me because I don’t earn 30x the rent. That is NOT discrimination it’s called an applicant aiming for a property that is outside of their financial reach.
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I was going to ask since when was benefits ‘earnings’ but stopped myself.
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And this is what I am doing, not taking dogs had bad experiences each time, no DSS bad experience, sold most of mine. Not quite all sold yet. Investing in the markets = no whining tenants. This is once again a post moaning and blaming landlords because we are “humans and an easy target” yet do we ever see posts by tenants directed at the Government and their poor policies.? or Lenders who happily increased rates 17 times yet when landlords do the same their is a massive outcry. It’s sad people can’t join the dots and regurgitate the media sponsored demonization of landlords. Yes certain tenants will not be able to rent easily - OpenRent has a system to check affordability, credit, ref, right to rent etc - if the system rejects the tenant why blame the landlord?
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I agree , successive governments have deflected the blame for poor housing policy onto private Landlords, unfortunately it seems a lot of people including many tenants have fell for it completely. The forthcoming RRB is already leading to problems with LLs (the housing providers) leaving the sector or becoming ever more risk averse when choosing a suitable tenant. A lot of tenants and would be tenants seem to be in denial about what is actually causing the problems. I saw on the news that the government is proposing cuts to some benefit claimants which will make it near impossible for some people to secure a property to rent.
Agreed! That comment speaks for itself. No prejudice against him but anyone else is fine. Someone earning double what he does with a few swears words here and there would still be my first choice, simply because they CAN afford it. Last thing landlords need is having to try to take someone to court for rent arrears when they didnt pass affordability in the first place.
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Government is not paying the landlords mortgage. Theyre not even paying the landlord. Theyre paying the tenant, regardless of the mechanism used/requested by the tenant. The housing allowance is the tenants money by virtue of the benefits laws and DWP dont much care what the tenant does with it. Theyre certainly not legally obliged to hand it over to the landlord. If anything goes wrong with the payment system the DWP are always clear that its the tenant that owes the rent, not them.
Saying that the Government should have a stake in the landlords property is like saying they should have a stake in Tescos because the tenant spends some of their income support there.
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You are not getting the very basic point I’ve made that as affordability is not based just on x30 income criteria if you have a policy that institutes this and that precludes benefit tenants getting properties as an outright policy you WILL BE DISCRIMINATING based on the Shelter ‘no dss’ case. It’s very simple.
What do you expect though - I’ve seen 4-5 landlords say on this forum that they would discriminate against benefit tenants and use ‘no dss’ policies despite the fact it’s against the law per binding precedent. That’s before we know how endemic the policy is, with most landlords.
So you can’t justify your own statements and you rather deflect blame at everyone else rather than answer the points asked?
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It seems to me that if someone who is in a position to get a mortgage as a buy to let landlord can benefit from a long term benefit tenant in their property and the benefits are essentially a subsidy of the mortgage, as is the case with millions of people in the UK, then the government ought to have more of an interest of the equity of that property. Landlords say they are a landlord as a “business”. The government can just say - sorry mate it’s just “business”
Maybe this might encourage more longer term landlords and those not for making faster bucks on property but landlords who want to see tenants in properties very long term.
Chip on shoulder AND jealousy and now entitlement
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I don’t see anything vaguely well reasoned in your argument. The savings between £6000 - £16k or under £6k has a much less proportionate affect on money paid from benefits versus overall general entitlement.
So in other words if you add another £1000 to savings it doesn’t effect benefits much such that the difference between someone who has no savings and someone who has £16,000 does really affect overall money paid that much. What affects it more is income from employment as is right.
In my case the rent on the property I tried and was refused is lower than the total of money paid in benefits because you haven’t added on the personal allowance of around £400 a month, as well. Rent £1025. Total in benefits approx £1250
I would also think in light of my reply you really ought to know as a landlord all these things and how it actually effects entitlement if you want to act with care and skill in identifying risk and entitlement.
really got to leave now .this person has so much time and entitlement I have to go and count my rent money
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