Caporegime
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When it’s your home, it’s where your family and friends are and you’re disabled, then yes, woe is them you heartless individual.
No DSS!
- Thread starter almoststew1990
- Start date
Yes i understand the pretence of it providing a more stable income than a 0 hour job, however, there's still a huge element of risk that councils paying housing benefits directly to the tenant will not get passed onto the landlord. As i said, the only way to negate this would be to re-introduce the direct payments from council to landlord, there would be no risk of the tenant not paying then.
I didn't quite say having a guarantor was a "good thing", and you're right, no landlord will want to have to go down the route of pursuing a guarantor, but the fact is that it's a legal option they can pursue to recover any monies owed. The landlord has no legal options for pursuing alternative routes if a DSS tenant doesn't pay. Their only choice is to take them to court, but chances are if they're a DSS claimant then they won't have any assets that could be used to offset the debt.
Actually i can quite understand that! The couple above our flat when they have their kid stay a few nights a week is a right nightmare, running around and bouncing toys. Would be fine if they're in a ground floor flat, but if they're above anyone, it can be a bit of an annoyance.If I ever owned two houses and I rented one out, being honest I'd likely refuse any one on dss, benefits etc, I say that then again if I met them my descsion may differ. The risk isn't worth it and for example if I rent a house out in the area we're I live the people I see who do rent and don't work treat the gardens and outside area like **** so God knows state inside.
There is plenty of people in the world on benefits etc who have valid reason to be and are nice people, can't blame landlords or owners wanting to limit any potential risks though.
My landlords who are actually close friends have few houses and they did same, stated no benefits etc.
Fine with pets, and even doing some work in house too.
I guess you'd consider dss tenants etc if you knew them personally as that would make it easier but so many landlords use letting agents now so don't vet people personally
There is plenty of people in the world on benefits etc who have valid reason to be and are nice people, can't blame landlords or owners wanting to limit any potential risks though.
My landlords who are actually close friends have few houses and they did same, stated no benefits etc.
Fine with pets, and even doing some work in house too.
I guess you'd consider dss tenants etc if you knew them personally as that would make it easier but so many landlords use letting agents now so don't vet people personally
Soldato
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NVM
Last edited:
Exactly this.
Yes, but why would we want something that works better and is cheaper rather than something that allows people who can already afford at least two houses to get richer while causing more hassle for everyone (including those people) and is more wasteful? That's the better way because reasons.
Soldato
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But new builds have affordable housing, that's like giving straight to the poor anyways................
Caporegime
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That’s another thing gets my goat, when people whinge about some of the flats in new builds being sold to housing associations and the tenants being on benefits. Instantly dismissing them as god awful people when they are probably as good as gold. It creates a divisive society.But new builds have affordable housing, that's like giving straight to the poor anyways................
They regularly moan “Why should I pay 300k for my flat when him next door gets it for nothing?”. They say it without realising that they don’t get it for nothing, they only have a right of abode, they don’t own the flat like you do, and can’t move as freely as you can, and if they misbehave, can be evicted.
Soldato
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I had to look up what DSS. It seems to stand for Department of Social Security and it got replaced by Department of Work and Pensions as we know it nowadays. So do the landlords now say "no DWP"?
Which actual benefit did "no DSS" refer to? I'm on DLA but it never affected me in getting somewhere to rent because I've worked all of my adult life except for a couple of JSA periods inbetween jobs.
Which actual benefit did "no DSS" refer to? I'm on DLA but it never affected me in getting somewhere to rent because I've worked all of my adult life except for a couple of JSA periods inbetween jobs.
Caporegime
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It refers to housing benefit.
The only change that will come from this is that rather than being put off by the advert clearing stating "no DSS etc" they will apply and be rejected later on.
It sucks for the decent people who happen be on DSS though but social housing shouldn't be handled by private landlords anyway, that rental profit could be spent on improving council house stock.
It sucks for the decent people who happen be on DSS though but social housing shouldn't be handled by private landlords anyway, that rental profit could be spent on improving council house stock.
I'm going to raise a counterpoint to this argument - I moved into a (rented) new build flat around 13 years ago. It had literally just been finished at the time, I was one of the first people in the block.
The landlord that bought the property next to me decided to lease it to the council, who put in tennant of a similar age. He was fine for 6 months, until his girlfriend started to stay regularly - and then things took a massive turn for the worse.
Some issues:
- Repeated instances of domestic violence.
- Her screaming at the top of her lungs all hours of the night whenever they had an argument.
- The police were called on 15+ occasions.
- My post was repeatedly broken into, I could never prove it was him.
- He used to knock on my door trying to sell me stolen items to feed his drug habit.
Now let me be frank, if I'm going to pay £300k for a new build flat - where I am going to be stuck for the forseeable future do I really want to run the risk of being stuck next a neighbor like that? I realize I'm tarring all benefit claimants with the same brush, and indeed I know several people on various forms of benefit that are wonderful people who do everything they can to better themselves - but this isn't my only bad experience living next to somebody on benefits, and its a risk I'd never willingly take again.
I can certainly see why someone who owns a property and say gets sent overseas by their employer would want to be super picky when it comes to renting out their property.
I think perhaps a solution could involve making it so that landlords who own multiple properties in a ltd company, can't remember the number off the top of my head but there were some exemptions in the tax changes for owners of multiple properties - perhaps they ought to not be allowed to discriminate against DSS tenants. After all if they're able to afford a dozen or so properties then they could chose to simply invest in properties outside the scope of housing benefit claimants. If they want to own multiple properties at the low end of the market then they need to accept those tenants.
It does seem silly that the local authorities can't just pay the rent directly though, it would save a heck of a lot of problems.
I think perhaps a solution could involve making it so that landlords who own multiple properties in a ltd company, can't remember the number off the top of my head but there were some exemptions in the tax changes for owners of multiple properties - perhaps they ought to not be allowed to discriminate against DSS tenants. After all if they're able to afford a dozen or so properties then they could chose to simply invest in properties outside the scope of housing benefit claimants. If they want to own multiple properties at the low end of the market then they need to accept those tenants.
It does seem silly that the local authorities can't just pay the rent directly though, it would save a heck of a lot of problems.
Soldato
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Doing the maths on this is absolutely dreadful, buy to let.
Better to invest in dodgecoin.
Well they don't get it for nothing and that is part of the problem, you've got a much higher chance of living with someone who doesn't work and/or has issues. A decent portion of the complete **** ups in society are going to be reliant on housing benefits, social housing etc... Sure there are also people who are simply poor and have been unlucky with work, health etc.. thrown in among them too but that doesn't change the fact that those nightmare neighbours exist.
Where I live there are 4 private blocks and 2 social housing blocks, the people in the private blocks adjacent to the social housing blocks have continuous issues with noise - you're far more likely to get a party at 3am if the tenants don't have to get up for work in the morning. For the same reason lots of people would be put off living in among a bunch of student houses or next to student accommodation.
This is the reason why developers ideally want to build the social housing in a separate blocks (in some developments they might be able to stick the private blocks behind a gate) or ideally just come to an arrangement with the council to build X amount of social housing elsewhere. In the case of say a tall apartment building you might get a separate entrance for the social tenants partly because of the social issues and partly because the housing association probably isn't going to be willing to pay the additional service charge for the reception desk/lobby, gym etc...
That's an interesting suggestion as people on those benefits are not limited or automatically excluded from obtaining HP.