Government vows Renters’ Rights Act will tackle rental discrimination

Reply to the comment left by NewYorkie at 04/08/2026 – 17:35
The principle benefits are Universal Credit, Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), Council Tax Reduction, Warm Home Discount, Cold Weather Payments, Child Benefit, Tax‑Free Childcare, 15 Hours Free Childcare, Personal Independence Payment (PIP, Disability Living Allowance (DLA), Attendance Allowance, Carer’s Allowance, Disabled Facilities Grant, New State Pension, Pension Credit, Winter Fuel Payment, Bereavement Support Payment, Funeral Payments, Free School Meals, Guardian’s Allowance, Statutory Sick Pay, Maternity Pay, Paternity Pay, Adoption Pay. situations.

The easiest way to check is to ask for a tax return or SA302 including any benefits and also of any entitlement to benefits. It isn’t just that the benefits system is complicated…ELIGIBILITY for benefits is complicated and almost impossible to work out. You would have to spend hours as a landlord so what you want from the tenant along with the tax return/SA302 is written evidence of entitlement to benefits.

Of course these aren’t the only possible benefits. A benefits tenant might be able to get a grant to stick solar panels on your house. But that won’t help you much if it turns out that they weren’t eligible for any of their benefits and the benefits people come after you as the landlord for repayment….as they can.

Reply to the comment left by DPT at 17:40
No you are not if you ask all tenants for SA302, tax return and evidence of income from all other sources including benefits and written evidence of entitlement to benefits.
Some tenants are not entitled to benefits but you are still asking the same question of ALL tenants.

You are obliged to CONSIDER income from all sources including benefits. If they do not have the income you do not have to accept them.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 04/08/2026 – 17:49
A person whose sole income is job seekers allowance and housing allowance isnt required to complete a tax return and SA302 statements are only available to people with earned income.

Reply to the comment left by DPT at 04/08/2026 – 18:19
If you ask ALL tenants for the same information….tax return…SA302….benefits…evidence of entitlement to benefits then you AREN’T discriminating. The above list does not include all benefits end entitlement to benefits is horribly complicated….even if you try working it out you will probably get it wrong.

Once you have made the request and gathered all the information it is up to you to decide which of the tenants is higher risk and you can make exceptions as you wish. Without exception, when I used to take them, I found that all the benefits tenants I had were moonlighting and so they were high risk because of THE GOVERNMENT that decided that if they weren’t entitled to the benefits, the benefits people could come back and get the money back off me as the landlord, even though I had no right to check entitlement.

However, you might have a bungalow or ground floor flat in a safe area near a public park, public transport, good shopping facilities and good healthcare facilities. A blind person with a guide dog might apply for that flat or bungalow and if they have written evidence that they are blind (i.e. registered blind) the chances of them losing their entitlement to ALL their benefits is probably going to be very low. It is one of those situations when you should definitely allow a ‘pet’ because guide dogs are amongst the best trained dogs in the country. I would have thought there’d be the prospect there of a good long-term tenant…why would the blind person ever wish to move? And of course you could be tempted to think “…this person’s blind so I shouldn’t have asked for the tax return” (although of course you SHOULD have already asked for the tax return because you have asked that for all tenants to avoid discrimination).

But of course some blind people work. David Blunkett works and he’s been busy in the House of Lords probably supporting the Labour Renters Rights Act, . By now he probably has earned income, pension income and he might also have benefits as he’s blind. So if David Blunkett or anybody else who is blind applies to be a tenant in your house then you ask for the SA302, tax return and all other sources of income and you let him make his case.

If you make the SAME request of ALL tenants then you are not discriminating: The evidence of income that they send to you is up to them.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 18:36
“If you ask ALL tenants for the same information….tax return…SA302….benefits…evidence of entitlement to benefits then you AREN’T discriminating.”
If they can’t provide the tax return and SA302 because they’re not available to them and you don’t give them an alternative, you are by definition discriminating.

Reply to the comment left by DPT at 04/08/2026 – 18:49
You aren’t discriminating. You are giving tenants the chance to provide evidence of income from all sources in order that you can take account of it when assessing affordability.

However, this Labour Renters Rights Act is a terrible piece of legislation and it isn’t just about income, it’s about affordability. One thing the act does is to ban you from taking payments in advance even if the tenant offers it. This is a problem because historically some benefits tenants (pensioners) haven’t been able to satisfy the income test but they have had savings and been able to offer payment upfront. Now, since the introduction of the act, you can’t take payments upfront even if the tenants offer it.

So in addition to the tax return, SA302, evidence of all other income including benefits, plus evidence of entitlement to benefits you also need evidence of savings. Unless you take account of evidence from savings you will be discriminating against a group of tenants on benefits….pensioners.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 21:33
I’m going to assume that what you mean is that you ask for a range of documents, some of which are alternates to the SA302 and tax return. This is not what you write in your posts, but its the only thing that makes sense. Landlords are going to need to be much more careful what they say to tenants and applicants and ask them for, as the Council investigators wont have time for nuances and will likely just serve a civil penalty notice if the landlords evidence is unclear.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 18:36
I would not necessarily say a blind person would make the best tenant, some can be cantankerous and more high risk if they fall in the property .How well trained are the dogs although an inventory clerk should pick up on pet odours etc and landlords still seem to have the right to ask for the property to be returned in same condition (cleaned to a professional standard).
Also I would prefer tenants who are not going to stay forever so I have the opportunity to sell without all the hassle and expense of court procedure.Who knows what GEN RENT etc will want next as already landlords rights have returned to the bad old days. Maybe sitting tenant rights.

Reply to the comment left by DPT at 14:52
The benefits bill in the UK is at a record high with approximately 22.8 million people on benefits of one kind or another. The benefits system is horribly complicated and if you try to work out eligibility you will get it wrong, either because you do not understand eligibility (I definitely do not) or because you will have forgotten something….like pensioners are on benefits for example…and so you will end up discriminating against them. Practically you cannot do this and you would just be creating risk were you to try.
You could easily have 20-30 tenants apply for a property. You can not have some kind of bespoke request for each individual tenant but instead you need to have a blanket process for ALL applicants requesting information that captures income from employment, self-employment (tax return/SA302), all other income including benefits, with savings added. Practically the best way to do this is a tax return with evidence of savings in a UK financial institution. If you request the tax return/SA302 that your typical working-age benefits person might not always have but your standard process enables a tenant to send also you something else that your typical employed or self-employed person also does not have (registered blind for example) then you have given all prospective tenants a CHANCE to become your tenants and you have not discriminated.
One of the unintended consequences of the Labour Renters Rights Act is that it makes it necessary for you to store a much greater quantity of sensitive personal information on tenants. The Labour Renters Rights Act is an exceptionally poor piece of legislation and you do need more information because of the increased costs and risks. But you have to be very careful indeed of recording anything in notes like ….to maintain harmony…, …because the tenants face will not fit.. …because I do not think the tenant is entitled to benefits… etc.
This is because either the tenants might issue a subject access request for your records on them or the council might do the same in order to get at you. And they will get at you….this is why there is an article on this site entitled Government vows Renters Rights Act will tackle rental discrimination. They are out to get you because the Labour Renters Rights Act is part of a labour anti-landlord, anti-private-capital, raid-private-assets crusade.
Instead what you need to record is something to the effect that the other applicants more easily satisfied the affordability criteria. You do not have to provide personal details of the successful tenants to the council or anybody else and you would be breaching data protection law were you to do it.

Reply to the comment left by David at 05/08/2026 – 15:16
Guide dog training typically takes 12-24 months. They are exceptionally well-trained. I would definitely have no problem with a guide dog in my property.