Equality laws could affect “no benefit tenants” policies

Reply to the comment left by Prakash Tanna at 27/02/2018 - 18:58
Thank you and good luck with your letting agency.

As a matter of interest, which redress scheme did you decide to go with and why?

Reply to the comment left by Mike D at 27/02/2018 - 15:18
Mike, It's a shame you had a bad experience and I do sympathise with you. BUT if you've only ever had ONE LHA tenant, it's very unfair to label them all as being the same. That's discrimination. Am sure many many Landlords have had similar if not worse experiences with professional tenants, students, etc. etc. So does that make every category of tenant out there 100% bad ?

Lets face it, we will all have difficult tenants over time, that's part and parcel of the work we do.

If your based in North London and need somebody to carry out maintenance or repairs (inc. clearing of dog mess!) then by all means get in touch and one of our friendly staff with be happy to assist .... TANNAProperty.com.

Reply to the comment left by Prakash Tanna at 27/02/2018 - 19:07
By the way Prakash, ordinarily we don't allow members to self promote, but i think on this occasion you have earned the right.

If you would like to name your business and post a link of this thread you are welcome to do so.

A link to your website may be of use to some of our members and a link on Property118 will certainly improve your search engine metrics 🙂

Reply to the comment left by Mark Alexander at 27/02/2018 - 19:06
I used PRS. In all honesty they were the cheapest at the time and easy enough to deal with / setup the policy.

Reply to the comment left by Mark Alexander at 27/02/2018 - 19:10
Thank you Mark, I really appreciate that. For now, I am happy to grow my business through word of mouth and reputation for a select number of Landlords. However if any of the members want to get in touch they are more than welcome to. Our website is http://www.TANNAProperty.com

Reply to the comment left by Prakash Tanna at 27/02/2018 - 10:48"over the past 10 years + have gone from 100% privately rented to 99.9% LHA tenants"
Wow! That is amazing!
Replacing working families with DSS families and taking 30% less profit for the same property.
The only way a typical greedy landlord like myself could do something like that would be to throw the working family out, gut the building, then whack in partition walls to create bedsits.
And then fill them with desperate DSS families.

Reply to the comment left by Monty Bodkin at 27/02/2018 - 21:48Different models work for different Landlords. I provide excellent quality self-contained flats and house and would never go down the route of cramming tenants into bed-sits for financial gain. I'd rather do a night shift and stack shelves at Tesco's thanks !!!
Nobody is suggesting replacing the good tenants you have. To go back to the beninginning (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i42PFralrhI to add a bit of homour!!) of this thread it's all about treating tenant types fairly and not discriminating those on benefits.
I do appreciate housing benefit tenants have a bad stigma attached from the days of high rise tower blocks being associated with drugs and high levels of crime etc. and it will take time for this to dissipate and to change peoples mindset.
I applaud anyone for being a Landlord and providing accommodation. It's not an easy task and your tenants are lucky. Well done!

Reply to the comment left by Prakash Tanna at 28/02/2018 - 07:09To go back to the beninginning
Good idea!
Firstly, this is a non-story put out by the BBC and Shelter.
Nothing has been proved, nothing has changed.
"No DSS" is not discrimination, it is an inevitable consequence of the attacks on landlords.
We have gone from DSS rents set at 50% of market rates to 30% and now at around 25% (due to the LHA freeze and caps).
Now you may deny there is any hassle dealing with DSS tenants but that is not the experience of the vast majority of landlords. Hard to quantify but shall we say on average 10-15%?
We are now down to 90% of the private rental sector being unaffordable to DSS tenants. And it will get worse as LHA rates don't keep up with market rates. Section 24, W&T allowance scrappage, 3% extra SDLT, punitive CGT, selective licensing fees etc are all having an effect.
Add on to that the raft of petty regulations that have recently come in preventing a landlord gaining possession, forcing them to be extremely careful who they let to.
Discrimination?
No, a sensible business decision.

Although I have come across a few HB tenants who seem decent enough people, this is the 1st time I have seen anybody defending them on a blanket basis - and seemingly run a successful operation with them. I commend you for that.
It seems to me that your model is only workable because the council you are dealing with is so much more sensible and enlightened than what we generally know councils to be. For us, just having to deal with the council on change over of tenants is such a nightmare we avoid them wherever and whenever possible. Often, I think the Neanderthals who work at the council revel in their ability to deter people like us.
As a rule, we shy away from HB tenants simply because they have such a bad rep and housing laws are such that we simply are afraid of courting trouble. It’s nothing to do with discrimination. More a case of self preservation. Hence we consciously went up market over the years - on the basis that tenants who can afford our rent are more likely to be more responsible financially, are more respectful of other people’s properties and have more to lose by behaving badly. It’s only a statistical probability. Not a given. In the 25 years we have been landlords, we have had several problem tenants but only 1 really bad case that cost us more than £15k and 7 months of heartache and anxiety. The council people were sympathetic but they were still helping and advising the tenant who gained entry with fraudulent paperwork. I think more of us would be more willing to consider HB tenants if our council work the same way as yours, the rules are not so onerous and the cost not so painful when things do go wrong.

Reply to the comment left by Richard Mann at 27/02/2018 - 07:40
Google Tenant Referencing UK and become a member. We need to list our bad tenants in order to self protect ourselves, particularly from serial offenders, who have made it their life's work to avoid paying for their accommodation by ripping off landlords with the collusion and encouragement of government and government departments.