DSS Tenants – another issue

I love this Paul Barrett. Spot on!!!

However, a guarantor is only as good as your ability to pursue them legally. Sounds good but in practice it can be difficult.

Wise man!! "I won't let to housing benefit claimants"

We could sell this guys audacity by the jar load!!!

When you want to let a property everyone is your friend as follows....

1. The letting agent loves you
2. The local Council loves you
3. The family of the tenant loves you

When you have to evict a tenant everyone says it not their problem! In fact you are considered unreasonable if you are evicting a tenant event if the tenant decides not to pay their rent.

Good advice - Always tell them that they brought it upon themselves by not paying rent!

Always try to S21 your tenant if they mess you around.

My second to best advice is............

Ensure you are covered by Landlords Insurance with legal cover protection and malicious damage by tenants. (some have a £2500 excess for malicious damage so please check the small print)

Also try Letsure for rent loss cover.

My best advice is..............

Do what I did and sell your BTL properties and live a more stress free life!!

As it appears that we LL all have a major concern about the way the county court system works in relation to rent arrears and necessarily prevents some LL from choosing to take on certain tenant types because of the difficulty in evicting; would there not be a possibility of attempting a change in the eviction law to ensure that once 2 months of rent arrears have occurred the tenant may be removed forcibly by police if that is what the LL wishes.

This would require a petition of 100000 LL signatures and possibly even some good tenants would sign aswell which should not be too difficult to achieve bearing in mind there are 1 1/2 million LL who must all at one time or another suffered the iniquity of the useless county court eviction process.

At least if such a petition is raised it will highlight the issue of LL not wishing to let to HB tenants due to the eviction process.

There are of course many other very good reasons why a LL would wish timely removal of a tenant..

I think; however it is one step at a time, sweet Jesus.

The major issue affecting ALL LL is rent arrears.

We have ineffective means presently at our disposal within the law; which as so organised is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Perhaps to have the matter debated in Parliament is as much as we can hope for.

It might bring change, it might not!

Nothing ventured, nothing gained however!

As for the form of words for such a petition proposal and to initiate the petition formally I would leave in the capable hands of a certain Mr.Mark Alexander; who has waxed lyrical and reflected in cogent terms the concerns of LL in regards to this timely eviction issue where rent arrears are concerned.

We are the only service I believe who are required by law to continue to provide that service when the defendant does not pay anymore for the service.

The fact that they happen to reside in the service that LL provide is irrelevant as far as I am concerned.

No other business; as that is what the PRS is would countenance such a business model.
Can you imagine for say 9 months no none paying for their goods at the the local supermarket!!???
Well effectively that is what can and frequently does happen to LL on a regular and increasing basis.
It might be a completely unrealistic thing to consider we can attempt to have changed; but surely we as LL; providers of an important societal service cannot be allowed to continue to be effectively abused by the users of the service they provide.
Thought I'd just throw the idea in the pot to see what other LL etc have to cay about the idea

I have searched the e-petitions website for petitions mentioning landlords and have found this one. Please help me to spread the words and get more landlords to sign it. There are already nearly 3,000 signatures >>> http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/35479

Unfortunally you have to experience the problems of taking on a DHSS tenant to understand the serious problems the tenant and the systems through up..

CAB and the DHSS office telling the tenant to stay in the property even though a working tenant has to leave after the two months notice till DHSS tenant has at a court order then they have to go plus now they have a court order against them.. it cant help them..

The lists do really go on and it has now become a major problem for tenants who have to receive benefits as once they spend the rent it doesn't take a Einstein to understand that they cant make up the money and it just spirals downwards etc

So good luck to people who help the DHSS

I am a tenant and I want to share my story. I claim Housing Benefit. And this is only because of ridiculousness of this system. I own my LTD company so I decide of my salary. If I increase my salary by 100 pounds and I take into the account the drop of tax credit, the drop of housing benefit, the increase of housing benefit because of drop of tax credit, the tax that I need to pay, the NI that I need to pay, the NI that my company (so thats me again) has to pay I will pay in taxes and in lost benefits exactly 102.55 pounds. That makes me MINUS 2.55; therefore the most logical option is to keep salary as minimal as possible and reinvest the money in the company so it grows faster and brings more income and in years to come I wont need benefits any more. However this stage when my rent is 1300 (I live in London) which is far more than minimum age the most logic move is to use Housing Benefit. When I worked as a full time hotel manager and I had salary of over 30k and my wife went on maternity I obviously qualified for Housing Benefit. I think that what landlords usually tend to forget is that you can be professional, have a great job, great salary and still easily qualify for Housing Benefit (due to very high rents). I have never failed with any rent payment on time since I started renting 10 years ago, I have never failed with any single credit card or loan payment. Yet I know people who worked in professional jobs, were made redundant and got into massive debts towards the landlords and those were not recoverable as they had no jobs. So this is life and there is always risk. The fact that I claim (out of reasonable economical decision as I could increase my salary to 2500 net per month easily but whats the point if this would cost me more and I will be worse off) doesnt make me risky tenant. In current economic situation I would be more concerned about people who might easily loose their jobs tomorrow.

I meant minimum "wage" not age, sorry 🙂

Oh and by the way. The tenant does not need to tell landlord he wishes and will be claiming after moving in 🙂 some of your posts address problems of notifying mortgage company and insurance company, but how would you know that your tenant made a claim after he moved in if he would never tell you. I personally know people who work increased hours or two jobs for three months before renting new place and as soon as they move in the decrease hours or go for part time jobs and then claim as it makes no economical sense to employee to work additional hours under current system. For an employee ere is 90.55% withdrawal rate, which means for every 100 extra gross pay 90.55 will be taken away in lost benefits and taxes. No wonder so many people claim. And due to high rents many full time employees must claim to be able to pay their rents. If you (landlords) want to keep your rents at over 1000 a month you must allow people on Housing Benefit or demand for houses will drop significantly and majority will stay empty until rents fall down. And if you think that your tenants do not claim as they are working you might be very wrong. 9 out of 10 Housing Benefit claimants (In my work I deal with people on Housing Benefit very often, so I know hundreds of claimants) do claim at the no-DSS properties and of course they do not authorise Councils to contact their landlords, so landlords have no clue (or pretend they dont know as they dont really want to know) that their tenants make claims. I think that it is time to distinguish between out of work claimants and in work claimants as those who do work claim because of low salaries, number of children (my friend has three kids, he has great job, huge salary, but it makes no sense to pay for childcare for 3 children which would be more than wifes salary and no help from government, so wife stays at home and they claim massive payouts in Housing Benefit) or other circumstances and those who work and claim usually have a very strong ethic and want to pay on time. This is because if they dont they credit scoring will be affected and they will struggle to rent another property in future and thus affecting their own families. For me my rent is top priority as I prefer to live in a nice area, close to my children schools, away from council housing and troublesome areas, so I need good references and great credit score; therefore it is so important to never fall back with rent. So does the fact that I, the same as thousands of working families, make us worse tenants? I dont think so. i believe that it is wrong to treat working claimants in a same way as unemployed claimants. Good credit score, history, references, work references, that should matter.

And what about those who work, have decent salaries but send children to childcare and claim help with the childcare (through tax credits and housing benefit) and I talk about families with joint income of over 60,000 per year. YES, providing they use childcare they can still qualify!! Should they be treated in a same way as someone unemployed for the last 10 years just because they also claim some housing benefit? That's why I think that landlords who understand that there are as many different situations as people can really benefit from having great tenants who are responsible and pay on time even if they claim some housing benefit. Of course you can read about horrible tenants who claimed benefits but you can also read about horrible tenants who never claimed a penny.