Trying to rent a place. What do you have to tell agencies?

On a side note, why do people not like to rent to universal credit tenants? Given the government are paying the money, isn't this a safer option over someone earning all their money through work, given they can be fired.

It's like insurance companies with risk. Being on UC is always statistically going to open the landlord up to more risk with payment and tenant problems.
 
I have a flat that I rented out last year via an estate agent, and part of the vetting process was the tenant's employer and income. In fact because my current tenant didn't earn quite enough the estate agent's rent guarantee (to me) did a 'computer says no' and so the tenant then had to find six months rent up front for them to meet the criteria. I was confused by all this, because I also thought you couldn't turn someone down who was on UC but they would have not have passed this process.
 

From the internet..

Letting agents cannot say it's the landlord's choice to refuse tenants on benefits.
It's against equality law for them to take instructions to discriminate from a landlord.
If you're dealing directly with the landlord, you cannot always challenge DSS discrimination. This is because private landlords are not regulated in the same way as agents
.

Not sure how my agent gets around it, but he does.
 
How would an estate agent force a landlord to take a tenant? I guess it's one of those laws where the estate agent won't be able to say the real reason, but will have to just make something else up.
 
It depends how the tenant is being paid for, up here the local council might be paying for them and the agent might indicate whether they believe the council will cover damage - from what I’ve been told councils are an absolute pain to deal with when their tenant damages your property so it’s additional risk.

I’ve had a private tenant that didn’t meet an income requirement but was able to demonstrate he had savings that satisfied the agent and he’s never been an issue.
 
On a side note, why do people not like to rent to universal credit tenants? Given the government are paying the money, isn't this a safer option over someone earning all their money through work, given they can be fired.

Just basic risk management, if the money were paid directly to the landlord then that might improve matters a bit but there are still potential issues with antisocial behavior, damage to the property etc. Same reasons people don't want to have social housing neighbours.

It's not necessarily that most social housing people or UC recipients are bad people or anything like that but it's the other way around, plenty of the absolute basket cases in society are on UC or in social housing etc. There's going to be plenty of correlation with long-term economic inactivity, social issues, mental health issues, criminality... keeping an XL bully etc..etc..
 
Some people just don't look after things, even if they live there.
My uncle used to work for the local council housing department in the maintenance team.

They were routinely refitting houses after tenants had stripped them of parts, as far as pulling cables out of walls etc and in one case having an open fire in the middle of the floor in a room.
 
They can, and personally I do.
My criteria is extremely strict as to who I rent my property to.
Can I ask why you don't let people on benifits rent from you?

If someone has a disability it makes it almost impossible to rent a flat on the private market as no one accepts housing benefit. I was always under the impression that disallowing disabled tenants was discrimination but I could be wrong.
 
Can I ask why you don't let people on benifits rent from you?
As has been said, risk management.
My parents used to rent one of their properties to Norwich council and every single tenant absolutely trashed the place.
The council did pay for repairs, but in the end they sold up.
However, not too long ago I did agree to someone on disability benefits to move in, but it turned out that my agent found out all kinds of things about them (presumably from references) and that they were lying about quite a bit of stuff, and that was that.
That experience (rightly or wrongly) has put me off a bit, and I guess like most landlords I just want to hedge my bets and take the safest option.
I do however sympathise with you fwiw, and it’s probably not fair to tar all with the same brush, but getting the wrong tenants is a nightmare I don’t want to think about, let alone experience.
 
As has been said, risk management.
My parents used to rent one of their properties to Norwich council and every single tenant absolutely trashed the place.
The council did pay for repairs, but in the end they sold up.
However, not too long ago I did agree to someone on disability benefits to move in, but it turned out that my agent found out all kinds of things about them (presumably from references) and that they were lying about quite a bit of stuff, and that was that.
That experience (rightly or wrongly) has put me off a bit, and I guess like most landlords I just want to hedge my bets and take the safest option.
I do however sympathise with you fwiw, and it’s probably not fair to tar all with the same brush, but getting the wrong tenants is a nightmare I don’t want to think about, let alone experience.
That is fair enough. I can understand how dealing with all those problems is stressful even if you ignore the money involved.
 
Can I ask why you don't let people on benifits rent from you?

If someone has a disability it makes it almost impossible to rent a flat on the private market as no one accepts housing benefit. I was always under the impression that disallowing disabled tenants was discrimination but I could be wrong.
If only there had been a discussion about this very topic in this thread a few posts above. :D
 
surely you end up sitting facing inwards with the other people basically seeing the side of your face the whole time? and not laying around like your some Rees mogg guy trying to sleep on the job
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2jmSFkB.jpeg

surely anyone there feels awkward ? youre really going to sit on the edge facing away from the other guests who you may or may not know? or lounging around in your shell suit on the edge like some creep fly on the wall.

a lot of people would probably prefer to stand
ah i thought you meant the corner bit itself.
 
Should start with the question is she a milf before asking for pics maybe a major disappointment

as milfy as they come!

2jmSFkB.jpeg

surely anyone there feels awkward ? youre really going to sit on the edge facing away from the other guests who you may or may not know? or lounging around in your shell suit on the edge like some creep fly on the wall.

a lot of people would probably prefer to stand


funny thing is i imagine you googled "corner sofa" and then skippped the 100 images of actual corner sofas to find something that isn't a corner sofa.

try drawing your stick person on something like this.

mBqIXiT.jpeg


It's like insurance companies with risk. Being on UC is always statistically going to open the landlord up to more risk with payment and tenant problems.

i guess that's true.
 
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