Government vows Renters’ Rights Act will tackle rental discrimination

From a discussion on another thread about the courts and the bailiff service not currently functioning properly, in addition to everything above it appears that in order to be able to be sure of getting an attachment of earnings via the Money Claim Online service, in your standard process for screening all potential applicants in order to assess affordability and risk, in addition to everything above, you need to be asking for:

– National Insurance Number
– Current employer details

Now of course they won’t ALL have a current employer because some might be pensioners on benefits for example and they might have state pension plus private pensions, and some might have self-employment income which you would expect to be declared on the SA302, or possibly partnership tax return.

But you do need a standard process to avoid discrimination so you do need be ASKING for NI number and current employer details.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 06/08/2026 – 12:09
I have had several prospective tenant decline to give me their National Insurance number. Guess what the consequences were? (Answers on a postcard please)

Tenants who have never worked (and there will be an increasing number of these tenants because of the Rachel Reeves jobs taxes) may not have a national insurance number, although they WILL be allocated one when they are given a Universal Credit Number. So it would be reasonable to ask ALL tenants for their national insurance number and the Universal Credit Number shouldn’t be necessary.

I suppose if you were to ask for the Universal Credit Number AS WELL or you were to ask for NI OR Universal Credit Number then you would at least be sending a message that your standard application process for all tenants does not discriminate and that all potential applicants are entitled to apply.

But if they send you the Universal Credit Number and not their National Insurance Number this tells you something about the tenant……they have never worked.

What do you say when the benefits tenant speaks to their DWP “handler” and are told they cant have an SA302?

Reply to the comment left by DPT at 06/08/2026 – 17:30
You are sending a standard form to all tenants: All tenants are given the same opportunity to access a rental property. Whether they send you their NI number or not you are asking all tenants for exactly the same information.

I am not sure if this is standard but recently I had a property up for rent . A couple with children and one of them working made an application.

The prospective Tenants requested information from U/C on on any entitlement they would be entitlement to from U/C.
U/C reply was they could not tell them their entitlement until they actually had the tenancy and were tenants .

Would that constitute giving them fair, non discriminatory opportunity and them failing to deliver the information, thus meeting the LL’s obligations?

Reply to the comment left by Northernpleb at 07/08/2026 – 08:57
I would want to know where they were currently living and why they haven’t already been claiming.

Reply to the comment left by Northernpleb at 07/08/2026 – 08:57
My rules, they have to have all their ducks in a well-ordered row before I will grant a tenancy. If UC decide it should be tenancy first, then there will be no tenancy. And yes this is the normal stance from UC.

Reply to the comment left by Gunga Din at 07/08/2026 – 09:07
The Labour Renters Rights Act changed a lot of things, subjected landlords to far more risk, and nobody should be surprised if landlords now have to ask for far more information to protect themselves as a consequence. On reflection, every landlord should be asking for a national insurance number otherwise apparently you can’t get an attachment of earnings order via the Money Claim Online service.

If a landlord does not ask for a SA302 (partnership tax return) then that discriminates against tenants in partnerships who have children because you are not giving these prospective tenants the opportunity to bid for your property, and the Labour Renters Rights Act prevents you from discriminating against tenants with children.

If a landlord does not ask for evidence of savings then that discriminates against the pensioner (who is a benefits tenant) who has low income but savings and who previously could offer payment upfront to get around the affordability check….until labour banned it.

In a previous comment somebody mentioned that blind people can be cantankerous…although I would view the blind person with a guide dog as an attractive tenant and in reality you can get your agent to deal with the blind person so being cantankerous isn’t necessarily your problem. But if you don’t also allow the blind person to send you evidence of savings (because their income might be low) then you aren’t giving the blind person the opportunity to bid for your property and you would be discriminating against the blind person under disability legislation.

Because the Labour Renters Rights Act bans you from taking more than the advertised rent and restricts rental increases you now always have to advertise high; but you can’t risk giving anybody a discount because if you do then the chances are that you will be discriminating against somebody even without realising it and this subjects you to the risk of a £7K+ fine. So you can’t EVER risk giving anybody a discount from the advertised rent.

If your universal credit claimant who has a universal credit number but no NI number, who has never worked and has no intention of working tries to bid for your property only to find out that he needs a NI number then he’s going to go away and get one and come back to try and bid for the current property or another property. If you then tell him he needs a lot of other things as well then he’s probably going to have a go at you via the council for discrimination: And so he needs to be asked for the same information as anybody else, upfront; there needs to be a standard form for everybody.

Because we have 11 million families with children and 22.8 million people on benefits in the UK and because everybody has to have the same OPPORTUNITY to bid for your property EVERYBODY has to be asked for the same information including NI number, SA302, tax return (wage slips don’t mean much), evidence of all income including benefits and critically evidence of entitlement to benefits….plus a lot of other things including photo ID that you will need to be able to have a chance of pursuing a debt claim in the event of non payment and spending a year trying to get your property back.

Now of course this means a lot more work. Faced with a Labour Landlord Database in the current climate a lot of landlords are going to go “**** it”, I’m not doing this any more and withdraw their properties from the market: This will drive rents up. For those landlords who are still in the market managing their properties themselves many are going to go “**** it….I’m going to let an agent do this.”

When Labour put together their Labour Renters Rights Act they did not do any significant consultation with small landlords (although they did consult agents). When they enacted their Labour Renters Rights Act what they were actually doing is writing a great big cheque for agents to be cashed against tenants in the form of higher rents.

Some tenants used to get around the problem of getting a (scarce) private rental property by offering more than the advertised rent; but labour banned that. I suspect that going forward, under the Labour Renters Rights Act having a guarantor could be much more important than it was previously.