I am appalled at the attitude of LL’s in regards to UC Housing element “ steer clear, not worth the hassle” etc, etc. You do realise that people that work full time are still entitled to UC to be able to assist them in affording rent ?! I am finding myself almost homlesss because of a section 21 NO FAULT eviction, my LL wants to sell, she is elderly and I have been here 10 years. In order for me to be able to rent I get UC top up, I am not “hassle”, I am an extremely good tenant with an excellent track record of renting and looking after property in my care ( I have a property maintenance back ground ), yet still there is a stigma surrounding UC. It’s very disheartening.
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Hi @Hayley24,
Sorry to hear about this. You can report the landlord as rude using the “Report Listing” button in the messaging thread or on the property listing page so we can review this.
We do rely on the courtesy of our landlords when communicating with tenants on our platform and I am disappointed to hear we have been let down here.
Thankfully this is extremely rare and I hope this doesn’t put you off our platform entirely.
This post does not appear to be relating to any direct rudeness, rather the common issue of Landlords preferring to choose tenants who are not relying on UC or Housing benefits.
@Hayley24 This issue is likely to become worse before it gets better. The financial obligations, taxes & regulations on Landlords continue to get worse, and hence Landlords are trying to minimise their risk.
I have numerous tenants including some on benefits. My experience is that those on benefits prove much more long term tenants, but are the ones where I find it most difficult to increase the rent to keep pace with inflation / market price, as their benefits do not increase at the same rate, and this presents affordability issues over the longer term.
Individual Landlords will have their own experiences which might influence their decisions. The reality of course if that they will likely all wish to take the lowest risk possible in selection of their tenants.
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More and more landlords are being more risk averse given the up and coming renters reform bill.
Part of the reason is the benefits system, delays with initial rent payment, benefits not rising inline with market value, and the fact that statistically they pose a higher risk.
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every single one of the tenants in my five properties has some element of their income from benefits. Two of them have only benefits. I’ve only ever had one tenant in nearly 30 years who has been entirely dependent on income from work and that guy was a complete ******** who never bothered to pay rent.
Make sure you get a sterling reference from that LL describing the length of your let and the circumstances in which you have had to leave. Make sure it has her contact details on it so future LLs can contact her to reassure themselves of the quality of your application.
Keep going… we’re out there and you’ll find us if you keep looking.
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I have just gone onto an online buy to let mortgage brokers website. As part of any mortgage application it asks the following;
What type of tenants will be living in the property? And you are given the following options;
Single family units
Students
Corporate Let
Housing Benefit
Asylum Seekers
Foreign Diplomats
Like any other comparison website it matches your application with each lenders criteria. If you play around with it and select each tenant type to see which ones will give you a mortgage and the interest rate they will apply. It is no surprise that selecting Housing Benefit will not give you the best rates. What I am surprised about is they are still doing it, in light of the renters rights bill🤔
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But I work and get UC top ups and still are being tarred with the ‘benefits’ brush. I do hope there are some worthwhile LL’s out there that we see me as an excellent T, will an impeccable track record, as actually they will probably be kinder LL’s.
not kinder . It is head not heart , looking at the pros and cons. Statistics, government attitude and so on
It’s an investment Colin, and you certainly can be more heart than head when you invest. It’s all about your approach to risk. Compare investing in arms to investing in renewables, for example.
In actual fact, none of us would be on here mucking around in messy, high risk, people-based property investment if we solely used our heads to invest.
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Hi @Hayley24
Good luck finding somewhere and avoiding becoming homeless.
I think landlords using s21 because they want to sell are also unfairly stigmatised - your LL may have all sorts of good reasons to need to sell and may have been advised by Estate agents that easier to sell if vacant.
Bottom line is most landlords and most tenants get tarnished by behaviour of the bad ones - the TV programme is called ‘ nightmare tenants and slum landlords’ not ‘happy renting’
You might ask them to consider trying selling with you as tenant in situ. A well maintained property with a good tenant who’s been paying on time for a long time and maintaining a place well is actually an attractive investment as a buyer LL then doesn’t need to have the hassle and risks around finding new tenants. And meanwhile your LL continues to receive rent.
Worth an ask as they might not have considered and could be blindly following Estate agent advice. After all the time it takes to sell a place (12-14 weeks offer to completion) gives them plenty of time to serve a s21 if they do get an offer from someone who wants to buy with it vacant.
Best wishes
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