Why landlords won’t take LHA tenants – this brave tenant has gone public.

Perhaps the govt should offer these poor unfortunates subsidised sky packages, with perhaps some sort of voucher system to enable them to have their vital fag and booze allowance.
Even to the point of having some sort of relationship with a local drug dealer to facilitate their weekend fix; it surely must be a breach of their human rights to not facilitate such vital medication to these addicts.
Viagra and IVF should obviously be provided free to ensure these unfortunates may continue to procreate to assist their financial situation; as it can't be their fault that they are effectively financially penalised by the inability to produce more offspring!!
The economy needs boosting and what better way than by assisting these unfortunates to be able to go to bingo or down the betting shop.
The govt would reap the reward in tax on their winnings and it will give them a sense of purpose that they are being productive members of society.
Surely all these all these circumstances are worthwhile for other members of society to work hard to ensure the taxes are available to assist these poor people.
In these hard economic times I think as hard working taxpayers we should be duty bound to continue working harder to provide for thes poor disadvantaged members of society.
Really we can't do enough for them can we!!?

This article by Mary may not seem a real situation, but only two weeks ago I was talking to an agent who collects rent from a tenant who is on housing benefit, this is done on behalf of a landlord. The agent pointed out to me that they had recieved
information from the tenant saying that they would not be able to pay the rent this month due to them going on holiday to Kenya. .
The agent was reluctant to tell the housing benefit, because then all payments would be stopped, and they are then left with tenants in a property not able to pay any rent.
There needs to be more co-operation from the ( LA ) benefits department with the landlords on matters such as this. It is well to remember the landlords as well as agents, have a far better chance of knowing there is fraud going on than the ( LA ), but regrettably ( LA ) just do not want to work with landlords or agents.

Having talked last year to the ( LA ) about tenants who did not pay rent but managed to buy a new flat screen tv -,two new beds - new dinning table and chairs - new wall units - new two sofas - new two american style fridges, and install sky system. The ( LA ) did not seem to want to know, but did comment
saying "thank god we don't have much housing stock, as we would not be able to cope with all the tenants problems that the landlords are experiencing,this would
be such a costly situation to administer ".
I guess this highlights the fact, that without landlords helping to bridge this gap for housing, there would be alot of people under canvas.  . 
 ,

I did not particulary like this, the point is taken, and there are some difficult tenants out there, but I particularly did not like the bit about an "upgrade to bi-polar", for many this is a very serious affliction.  I just would not want to see too much more of this!  I blame the system for the absurdity of some  benefits - but like I say, I do get the point!

A Catherine Tate lookalike?

When will CamerClegg stop the single parents benefit lifestyle choice of the idle and feckless otherwise known as the Bastardisation of Britain program.....? Oil rich Norway saw the light....  These problem people cost us £5 billions / year and austerity GB cannot afford it any more than bankers bonuses or civil servants and MP's excessive unfunded pensions.

If I as a landlord was in this position I would advise the LA not to advise the Local Authority of this fact.
I would however advise that rent had not been paid.
Arrange for direct payment and commence possession proceedings immediately
Hopefully evict using Section 21 protocol.
There are plenty of tenants out there that can't afford to go on holiday to Kenya.
I would prefer to rent out to those rather than your scoundrels.
Once you have evicted the tenant I would report the tenants going on holiday and that they may have undeclared income to be able to afford such holiday arrangements.
And that they refused to pass on the LHA to facilitate that holiday..
Hopefully they will stay in Kenya; probably where they came from.
I would also register these facts with LRS and tenantid.co.uk.
And if you have had to  register a CCJ on their credit file for non-payment of rent.
Hopefully that will prevent them obtaining a tenancy with a good LL in the UK.

What did Norway do and is that something this govt should do?

Harry I would like to steal your Kenya story if I may.  Stories like this help me to get serious messages to landlords which help them to cover their backs.

On a lighter note there are many times when I wish that I could record the faces of landlords in the audience when I tell stories like this - quite literally from where I am standing this is what I can see

Hi Mary, thanks for your reply, please do use this story of Kenya. I have many stories of tenant problems, as I have some thirty seven years of experience.
Things have changed alot over the years putting the emphasis on the landlord as always the one to blame, where in fact for every one bad landlord, there are as many as a hundred or more tenants, and I am being very conservative with these figures, who take the landlord and the tax payer to the cleaners.  

Whilst there are good tenants, why should they be tarred with the same brush, that also goes for landlords as well, but landlords are always seen to be the bad guys.
It seems over these past years these bad tenants have lost respect for the ( property ) the roof over their head, as well as the respect they should be showing for having free monies to put a roof over their head. 

Landlords over these years have been given more conditions to adhere to, so now surley it is time for tenants to acheive a standard before they can receive a tenancy, 
One way could be that all tenants must take out an insurance to cover their rent, and possibly any damages incurred within the property, the landlord must be given these details when the tenancy is issued.
Obviously the more claims, the more premiums are paid, just like any other insurance, one would hope that this will refleat on the tenant to be more responsible .    
It is without doubt over the last thirty seven years non payment of rent is by far the biggest problem within this industry, easily 90% +, it is now time for these bad tenants to clean up their act. 

Regards Harry

Hi Harry

Maybe I'm wearing rose coloured glasses but I do feel as though things are turning in our favour, especially landlords service the the upper end of the market. I regularly get 10 or more applications these days when a tenant serves notice so I can afford to pick and choose. Going back just a few years it wasn't like that. I've heard of landlords insisting that tenants purchase contents insurance and having the landlords name noted on the policy. As demand continues to intensify as a result of government cut backs I predict mass civil unrest due to homelessness and I can also envisage landlords servicing the upper end of the market insisting on tenants purchasing *ASU policies.

* Accident, Sickness & Unemployment

I must admit I like the idea of the tenant having to pay for a policy to cover them is a good one
There may be issues in tenant renewal of such rent protection policies.
I think the car insurance analogy works though;  the riskier you are the more premium you pay.
If every tenant had to source their own insurance the insurance companies would have a massive new income stream.