Landlords drop housing benefit tenants as cuts bite

No that is very wide of the mark Gareth. Tempting to think so though 🙂

Since government started cutting benefits councils have been using DHP to meet the short fall to prevent a rash of homelessness applications. This is the nonsense of trumpeted cuts, they arent cuts at all because the true cost is being picked up elsewhere in the system. Govt cuts HB naitonally, the DHP budget goes up on a local level and when councils cant cope anymore the government accuses them of mismanagement. It would be laughable if it wasnt so depressing.

High PRS rents and lack of landlords lowering their rents (why should they?) is certainly an aggravating factor but the council's arent hoping to drive down rents with a petulant gesture. Newham's plan is a financial response, using the laws that are available to it, and Newham arent the first by any means, which is why I am surprised it is getting so much publicity. Croydon council have for ages been farming homeless cases out to Hull, Kensington & Cheslea are offering £2,500 to anyone who wants to move out of their borough (with deposit and rent up front you cant get anything in K&C for £2,500) Once in another area they dont care if the person cant pay the rent and goes homeless in say, Dagenham because once in that brough for 6 months the tenants have what is termed a "Local connection" and therefore the responsibility for re-housing through homelessness is down to Dagenham, not K&C.

At the bottom of all this are the poorest among us who are now being farmed out with no say in the matter

Not quite sure what the interplay between capping the benefits and all this is - I guess all in all it means everyone on benefits eventually end up in the same place - maybe Anglesey - mind you that's ok I might sign on myself.

I welcome the housing benefit changes.  For too long landlords have been milking it and rents have shot up.  Our country is bankrupt, we have to clamp down on escalating housing benefit claims.

Why should housing benefit tenants get more in housing benefit per week than hard working people earn.

It's about fairness, time to share the pain.

As house prices fall will be possible for landlord to purchase and make a healthy profit within the housing benefit caps.  Those who over payed for their properties and can't make the rents work I suggest you sell or read survival of the fitness.

My council is slowly slowly starting to sit up and take notice and up its game. Its an uphill struggle.  Its such a culture shock for them. They are not really people persons. They like systems. Some will adapt. Some may welcome better interaction. Many I fear  though will see it as sleeping with the enemy.  It may be too little to late for many LHA landlords. They will jump ship. I will hang on in there. I keep the faith. I have sympathy for council staff as they have not been taught the art of positive engagement. They squirm when I am polite to them. They find it difficult to share a lighthearted comment. Its seems alien for some of them to even conceive that they could potentially enjoy engaging with the landlord or the tenant. To them its a battle of wills. They robotically defend their position. They often get it so very very wrong. But sorry seems to be the hardest word. I remain positive though. The drip drip method. They surely cant remain grumpy all their lives.  Inside all negative mindsets is a positive one trying to get out. That`s what I believe. Housing Benefit staff are no different. They want to be happy. I will try my best. I like a challenge. 

Jonathon, your words are music to my ears. A landlord who understands where council bods are coming from.
 
We have been hidebound for years by being public servants, working to a government imposed script.  We aren’t bad people.
 
I have heard that when a mahout is training an elephant in Sri Lanka, they start when it is young, tethering it to a small stake banged in the ground. It tries to pull the stake out but doesn’t have the strength.
 
As the years go by it gets accustomed to the stake, until, when it weighs 3 tons it doesn’t bother to test the restriction, even though it could easily break away. Conditioning does the job.
 
Councils are like this.
 
The difference is, there are loads of people like me who are urging councils to pull their leg away. I loathe the coalition government with a passion but even I acknowledge that they are doing their best to remove red tape, Localism is a great idea.
 
People in my position find the biggest barriers isn’t from you guys, it comes from within. You can’t affect that but we can, it is our challenge and I know loads of good people who are on the case. Acting despite our restrictions.
 
All my colleagues are great people; they just need to understand that the stake has been removed. My role is to let them know

I see , so all a council has to do is house it's homeless anywhere for 6 months and then there is no 'Local connection with the original borough.
What a fantastic way to 'cleanse' one's problem tenants out of one's responsibility.
You could even have these boroughs pay over the odds to get rid of these tenants, as after 6 months it won't be their problem.
How many tenants do you think are aware of once out of their area they will have lost the 'local connection'
Not many!?
They could even be bribed into leaving by councils anxious to break a local connection with the borough.
It would be under the guise of say a displacement gratuity for such tenants to leave the area.
Savvy tenants will refuse all such housing offers out of area.
Deperate ones will take anything even if it is in Stoke.
They will then not stand a chance of returning to restore a 'local connection'
Having said that there are lots of vacant properties in Stoke, but no jobs.
I am not sure though that is much of an issue; these claimants won't bother getting a job down here so they might aswell not be getting a job up north but with less expenditure being made for LHA.
Appreciate that is rather depressing outlook for these claimants, but realistically what chances do they have of finding employment!?
I would say ZERO as it would not be worth their while as they would lose too much in benefit, so why bother working whern you will be no better off.
I'm afraid UC will do nothing to address this situation.
One of the problems of the system and not the LL or tenants is holding LL to account for deficiencies in the system.
Apparently there are more than 1000 suitable properties in Newham well within the LHA limits.
These 500 'difficult' tenants could easily take these up and therefore there wouul be no need to go to Stoke.
Fly in the ointment...........oh yes!
Guess what it is..................yes you've got it, the LL with those properties do not wish to let to LHA claimants.
Now ask yourself WHY with available tenants would these LL prefer to keep their properties vacant rather than fill them with LHA claimants.
Perhaps it is the LL bitter experience of LHA claimants and the way LL have been treated by council housing depts.
This not to blame anyone it is just the system.
If a LHA tenant fails to pass on LHA to the LL then the LL faces many months of cost waiting to evict the tenant.
If the LL chosses to retain the tenant they have to wait 2 months before the LL can claim direct payment.
If direct payment occurs then if the LHA claim is deemed to be fraudulent or domestic circumstances of the tenants have changed then recovery of LHA from the LL will be attempted by the council.
Under these circumstances you can see why no LL would wish to rent to this type of tenant.
There is no shortage of tenants from the PRS and RGI can generally be sourced on these tenants removing the possibilty of not receiving rent.
LHA tenants do also seem to bring along other issues with them; which most LL do not wish to be concerned with.
It has been projected that there will be a demand over the coming years for another 1 million tenants.
LL will prefer these PRS tenants rather than LHA.
The system needs to be changed so that if a LL suffers loss caused by a LHA tenant failing to pass the rent on, the LL should be indemnified against such loss of rent.
Not passing on rent should be made a fraudulent offence.
This is why LL don't want LHA claimants.
Will the govt or councils do anything about this situation?
NO
It looks like bleak times for LHA claimants!

Brit mate, absolutely agree with you, housing benefit has been too much.
It penalises hard working people who can only dream of affording such property that LHA claimants can occupy. 
However LL who as you say overpaid, or rather they paid what the market was at the time, will NOT sell, because they can't, they are not allowed to by lenders.They will retain negative equity property which due to low interest rates are generating positive cashflow.
This is likely to continue for many years.
They will have no issue making the the rents work as they will just dispense with LHA clai
mnts and the lower LHA amounts as there are more than enough existing and forthcoming tenants coming into the rental market, who can easily afford the market rents.
So I am afraid LHA tenants are going to struggle as they are and will continue to be at a disadvantage to PRS tenants.
There is a national shortage of rental property and this is NOT going to get any better anytime soon.
So LL are easily surviving as the fittest as they are renting to the PRS and NOT LHA claimants.

Ben, your small point "stop attacking solar panel grants" is in effect the summation of everything that is wrong when governments attempt to distort markets. My multi millionare boss has just installed a massive scheme on his estate guarenteing him SUBSIDISED returns of over 20% per annum. Look to the council/poor estates in any city.See the people benefiting from green policy? No - but go to the private mansions and executive homes and you will see a proliferation of income generation getting handouts from taxpayers. This is a small model of how the rental sector wraps itself around the benefits on offer and not the other way around - but can we expect anything elso from our behaviour, short termism and greed? I have no solution for the misery caused to people who have no roof over their head but I do know what would happen if you doubled the rent allowance - suddenly that would become the "market " rate.

Ben. Forgive me for being simplistic but the thing I don't get is why would a council 'close the books' on dealing with private landlords when benefit capping would in effect reduce the amount paid out and automatically have the same ultimate effect. The 2 things are connected but in precise definition 2 different things. Not really taking sides - I understand both sides of the argument - especially as this country has let the situation occur and now wants to suddenly chop it - hardly socially caring if however perhaps necessary.

A bit like the situation of letting 'us' build up a portfolio then suddenly telling us "didn't you we have a name for a sub type of this nasty purchase behaviour - it's called HMO syndrome which is a landlord disorder and very bad and very very chargeable and requires you bow down to us whilst you’re at it"
It would seem like all housing matters are interrelated and we've got ourselves a situation where the only way out is a fully comprehensive pre set out framework which has plenty of 'time and space' within it for adjustment.

Or better still, get rid of councils - local power just means even more power hungry chiefs with even more money bags and even more layers within the system to use each other as excuses. In fact lets get rid of the goverment too and landlords could set up their own police force. Job done. You could be DSI Lewis and have your own reality tv program  (lol)

As far as I can see we have a lot of different situations all around the country. London obviously has the issue with the £400 cap but elsewhere it seems to depend on how the BRMA boundaries have been drawn. The government definition of which is: A Broad Rental Market Area is an area ‘within which a person could reasonably be expected to live having regard to facilities and services for thepurposes of health, education, recreation, personal banking and shopping, taking account of the distance of travel, by public and private transport, toand from those facilities and services.’ purposes of health, education, recreation, personal banking and shopping, taking account of the distance of travel, by public and private transport, toand from those facilities and services.’ and from those facilities and services.’ It seems that the first problem is the glaring omission - EMPLOYMENT.The BRMA definition may be all well and good for unemployed claimants but it's next best thing to useless for low income working people especially in sparsely populated rural areas.  The BRMAs vary in size by hundreds of square miles.  Just how far is it reasonable to expect someone on minimum wage to be able to afford to travel to get to work? ‘within which a person could reasonably be expected to live having regard to facilities and services for thepurposes of health, education, recreation, personal banking and shopping, taking account of the distance of travel, by public and private transport, toand from those facilities and services.’ education, recreation, personal banking and shopping, taking account of the distance of travel, by public and private transport, toand from those facilities and services.’ .’ It seems that the first problem is the glaring omission - EMPLOYMENT.The BRMA definition may be all well and good for unemployed claimants but it's next best thing to useless for low income working people especially in sparsely populated rural areas.  The BRMAs vary in size by hundreds of square miles.  Just how far is it reasonable to expect someone on minimum wage to be able to afford to travel to get to work?