http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39102860



The problem is that in the "old days" the benefit went to the landlord - it now goes to the tenant direct and if its a choice between heat / food and rent then the rent gets missed

I have a mate who rents out flats in the midlands - we was always happy with DSS tenants as he said one you did the paperwork the money came in each month as it was paid by the council but now he will generally only rent to people in work as he has lost to much to people keeping the money and not paying him

Actually that's wrong. They pay to the landlord direct too but that may vary between councils.

I think the main reason people are reluctant to take DSS is the councils are so bloody rubbish! My council lost the paperwork 5 times for one of my lodgers. I had even hand delivered the paperwork myself as I was so angry at them. I had to wait about 6 months before I started getting any money.

Whether or not the money goes to the person or the landlord I think depends if the individual has been shifted onto Universal Credit. Housing benefit is indeed still paid directly to the landlord but if someone is on Universal Credit then the housing element is paid, along with everything else they are entitled to, direct to the individual. MoneyAdvice Service clickety.

Yet another government wheeze to subtly (or not so subtly) bugger up the lives of the poorest in society - the reason housing benefit was paid direct to the landlord was that, in a lot of cases, the individuals in receipt of it were demonstrably not capable of managing their finances successfully (as pointed out above if you have to make a choice between being warm, eating and keeping a roof over you head in the future one of the first two frequently won out as it was a more immediate problem).

I suspect the there are two main resons.
1) The landlords are worried about the rent being paid on time
2) The landlords are worried (rightly or wrongly) that the council will put in people that don't treat the house well and will rack up some damage when they leave.

1) Housing benefit is always paid on time once it's been set up
2) The landlord still has the decision whether to accept the tenant or not, not the council

A lot of councils pay the Housing Benefit to the person and not the Landlord. I guess it's to get people in the habit of being responsible for paying bills etc so they're used to budgeting etc when they get a job.
This does mean that Landlords can end up out of pocket when the tenant gets an unforeseen expense they haven't planned for and spends the "rent" on something else and gets in arrears.
Best they can do then is evict after 6 months (so 6 months unpaid rent + court costs) & try to sue for the money but that's going to get them nowhere

During the Thatcher years, there were similar changes in the benefits system. I used to work at the DHSS mid-late 1980s, and saw the change from Supplementary Benefit to Income Support. With Supplementary benefit, there were a lot of mechanisms to help people budged. People could voluntarily go onto a kind of savings scheme (a pound or so docked from the benefit payment, and saved for a rainy day). There were also similar systems in place to help with water, gas, electricity and rent arrears. People could stay on those if they wanted to after the arrears were cleared.

With Income Support that was slimmed down. The “savings” thing was scrapped (we had to go through every case file, working out who had saved and what they were owed), and the whole gas/water/electricity was slimmed down. You could only stay on that if you were demonstrably rubbish at budgeting. That would not include people who were “just a bit rubbish” at it.

The problem is is you give someone who has little or no money £10 to feed themselves, they’ll spend the whole £10. Drop that down to £8 snd say that the £2 will pay the electricity bill, and they’ll adapt quite easily to feeding themselves on £8 - but they may skip a meal or two. Give them the £2 back and tell them that they have to pay the electricity out of that money, and guess what - they’ll spend the whole lot on food, and eventually get their electricity cut off. That’s not necessarily idiocy or financial incompetence. It’s survival. If you have a family, the pressures are greater.

This isn't new news - It's been that way for years.

Private renters are required to pay a bond, held in escrow, so they are invested in the condition of the property at the time they are due to leave. I've seen the [LIFTED] state some DSS tenants have left a house/flat in because they aren't liable for the bond. Yeah, the council might still have to pay the landlord, but the hassle of ripping out and replacing all the carpets and having the place fumigated (yes, really)... I can understand the decision.

I know there are plenty of people on benefits who look after their rented home but I can see why some landlords don't want to take the risk.

That's a lot of generalisations. My mother had problems with a private tenant and it cost her £5k to evict him. Every landlord takes a risk when you rent out a place, it's not specific to whether you are on benefits or not.

Have you never been out of work and claimed benefits? If not then you are incredibly lucky.

Really, where?


Irrelevant, but yes I have - Did you read my post, or just skip every second word and make up the rest?

I know someone who rents, and she’s petrified of making even a mark on a wall incase it impacts the deposit.

I know someone else who rents a property, and she’s had problems with the tenants (who have now left), and they’ve trashed the place from what it sounds like (water damage they didn’t report, cut a tree down in the garden without permission, there seems to be a growing list). And those ex-tenants (who were in full time employment) are contesting deductions on the deposit and being general arseholes about it.

So not always people who are on benefits are like that. Basically, it could be anyone.

A mate rented his house, references all checked out and employed. When he told her that he wanted to move back in (after the 6 months term of the lease) and gave her a couple of months’ notice if she wanted) she immediately stopped paying rent

When he finally got rid of her he had to take her to court for the back rent – she claimed that she had left the 3ish months back rent on the kitchen table and that my mate had taken it
However the judge must have heard it all before (he asked here to show bank statements showing the withdrawals or any other proof which she couldn’t so was ordered to pay

Tough for your mate and I'm not condoning her behaviour , but if she rented a property for a year, probably paid several hundred pounds of letting agents fee to be told after 6 months that she will need to move back before term ( and pay fees, removal van again etc) I can see why she'd be pissed off.

It was a standard 6 months tenancy with then a rolling 1 month continuation. She had been there (IIRC) some 9+ months. He then wanted the house back to move back in and said she could have a couple of months to find a new place - so he was trying to be as nice as possible