Hi Mina,
This makes me so sad. I guess it is an issue nationwide. Like you I have ill health, I’d much rather be working in my career, earning £70-80,000 a year, buying my cute little cottage in the country by the ocean, and being in charge of my destiny.
I totally hear you.
How long have you been looking? What area (if it’s okay to ask that).
I just keep thinking maybe soon when I move I’ll use the knowledge im acquiring to help others.
Hi colins3, am in need of a 1 or 2 bedroom flat for rent at Luton. My budget is between £600 to £ 750. Kindly assist
my places are on Merseyside Near the Mersey
Is it near the ocean? Hahaha
Mina,
Always around if you need someone to vent to.
I have also one tenant on the benefits for 10yrs and
during this time there a few a few ups and downs but
we have good understandings and respect each other.
Good landlord and tenant relationship and I remember
that once she told me after about 5yrs that the first time
she she felt like she got proper home.
Thanks Victoria that’s very kind of you,it’s not often to find someone so kind. I will keep in touch.Mina.
Thats a wonderful thing, Prafula . All most people want is a safe place to call home.
I want to move to PenicuikMidlothian where my twin sister lives or Manchester to be near my grandson.At present I am living in a village in Scotland called Catrine and I hate it, I only have one trusted friend here,I have no one to go on holiday with or go out and it’s soul destroying I am desperate to leave.
Mina,
I can totally relate. I’ve been left here with no one at all. I spent 16 months of Covid inside my flat without seeing a single soul.
Finally I’ve been awarded a carer once a day as I broke my ankle and to deal with the isolation. I just want to start living again.
Can’t you apply for social housing in Manchester as you have a local connection. Or is it the same as where I’m trying to move to (Brighton) with huge waiting lists.
My friends are 200 miles away at present, they are amazing people who support me.
Mina
I’m just now looking up Penicuik Midlothian. If? I mean when I move to Brighton you can come visit.
I have actually thought about moving to Brighton.It seems to be a lovely place and plenty to do but I don’t know if I could start again in a new place but I hope &
You find somewhere soon.x
It’s bedtime for me I will chat tomorrow with you x
Victoria21
Sorry to hear that having the same problems and don’t know who to turn to.
Myself and my father 79 would like to relocate to Frodsham but what problems its unbelievable
Who do you turn to nobody seems to help
Hope you find something soon
Wishing you luck
Paula Mcmullen
If prospective tenants works partime
& claim universal credit these are the best ones.
That means landlords knows you are making an effort too !
It’s not every body that has a job part or full time,and there’s going to be many more people being unemployed due to the Covid lockdowns .My heart goes out to the many thousands of people that are homeless due to this disease and the many companies that have had to close down, and I don’t think we have seen the last of this.
When I take out the insurance on my properties one of the questions they ask is “What type of tenants will you be renting too?”. I always click on ‘Employed or self employed’. I assume the quote is based on this fact and it appears on my insurance documents. I assume if I clicked on Benefits or DSS I would get a very different quote although I have never tried it. I always take the insurance document to viewings and tell interested parties of this condition on my insurance. Another condition of my insurance is that all the necessary credit checks and references are carried out.
I would consider a tenant on PIP providing they could afford the rent from other income (PIP is not means-tested and is supposed to go towards the costs of disability).
You have to remember that benefits can be taken away as easily as they are given. (My daughter-in-law had her Pip taken away - her disability had not changed, the criteria for claiming it had).
So if someone could not afford the rent without using the Pip, I might still consider them but would ask for a guarantor who was a home owner and had a good income.
I have a 10 year award so no changes for me in that time. Also each person is rated differently on PIP . I was awarded the highest rate for each section.I receive other supplementary benefits that make my annual income affordable for private rentals. No guarantor.
Means tested simply equates to proving that you could not provide for yourself that which the government gives you. Its not solely to supply financial assistance for your particular disability, it’s to provide enough money that would equate to a living wage. Being very unwell is a full-time job, I’m constantly at the hospital, in the hospital, at the doctors surgery, dealing with social services and having to have total strangers in my home to help care for me. I’m not just having the occasional cough. PIP affords me the time and resources to undertake all of that.
Although I see the side of the landlord asking for a guarantor, it erks me. People can loose their job in the wink of an eye, especially in the current climate. I’m just over being treated like a second class citizen, and having to jump through unrealistic hoops. Hopefully I will find a landlord who can see my exemplary history of paying my rent and being a good tenant, and that I’ve had financial stability for over 2 years. I’d never stay in accommodation I was unable to pay for as the stress of that would outweigh having a roof over my head.
Landlords have their own requirements but so do tenants. I have to live with the risk of a landlord deciding to sell up and having to leave. It’s hard to think of where you live like a home when you always have to factor that in. I do not enjoy that instability, but I do not have a choice. I can have a landlord that doesn’t do repairs and then have the stress of trying to negotiate that. I may also have a landlord that wants regular access to their property and deal with feeling like I loose an aspect of my privacy. Rules about how I can decorate, whether I can have pets and on…put yourself in those shoes. Landlords want tenants to understand the risks they endure, but it’s a two way street.
Renting may be a business transaction for a landlord, but trying to find a home is a very personal and emotional transaction akin to buying a home.
It seems to me that both tenant and landlord are coming from different ends of the spectrum in terms of their relationship - like a bad marriage.
Also I think landlords should be mindful when dealing with people on PIP, a lot of us are also very unwell daily. I’m not saying go and give them a tenancy, but respond to them with that in mind. I don’t have a problem someone letting me know I’m not the tenant for them, but kindness goes a long way.
Another thing I would like landlords to think about; I was a working and training professional. I was working up to my doctorate in Psychology. I was in charge of my own destiny, had a husband, a land and homeowner, one car each. All the perks of working hard. I’m not some kind of “degenerate dossing around on the dole” (not my words). And there are, many, many people out there like me.
Hi Paula,
I do understand the struggle and I’m sorry you’re having to go though those kinds of difficulties. I can’t imagine also having the responsibility of an older parent too.
I’m wondering if there could be some kind of coop between landlord and those on PIP. It seems very unfair to have to have so many issues to try to improve your living situation through no fault of your own.
Don’t give up and just keep on keeping on. I think Covid has created a surge in people wanting to move. Hopefully with time that will settle and it may just level the playing field a bit.
I’m going to do some research to see of there is anything out there that may offer support to those who are unwell trying to secure accommodation. I’ll come back if there is.
Hang in there!