Less wiggle room for Shelter to keep stating that landlords are evicting for no reason?

Less wiggle room for Shelter to keep stating that landlords are evicting for no reason?

9:59 AM, 21st August 2023, About 9 months ago 16

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Hello, the government have updated the procedure for a landlord to request a direct deduction from a tenant’s benefits to pay for rent arrears and for it to be paid directly to the landlord.

Landlords can also request direct rent payments if these have not already been established. Even if your tenant is not in arrears, you can make a request.

Requests are looked at on a priority basis, but given the current climate, you may want to do this anyway as a safety measure.

There are some tenants that regularly miss payments and then make them up just before the landlord can request a UC47 so the history of persistent rent not paid on time is not logged anywhere. Direct payments can stop this, ensure that the tenancy continues and provide a landlord with evidence that persistent late payments exist. (handy when S21 is abolished and you are relying on persistently late grounds?)

It also means that the stats of direct payments requested and agreed will increase – adding to the evidence that more tenants than ever are struggling to meet the rent on time. Surely this gives less wiggle room for Shelter etc to keep stating that landlords are evicting for no reason?

The full updated guide for landlords on rent arrears and service charges can be seen here

Thanks,

Reluctant Landlord


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Comments

GlanACC

11:40 AM, 21st August 2023, About 9 months ago

I did this once on one of my properties, trouble was the single mother in the property couldn't be bothered to reply to letters from the council and couldn't be bothered to fill out the forms. Hence payments stopped (I S21'd her).So as long as your tenant has more than a walnut for a brain it might help, but it still won't stop it from happening. Also if in rent arrears the council can decide how much to be take , bet it wont be more than £5 a week if that.

Peter

13:17 PM, 21st August 2023, About 9 months ago

There's a catch to having payments sent directly to Landlord - if it turns out the tenant has not reported a change of circumstances i.e. moved a partner in or has been working and not declared it - guess who is responsible for repayments of rent; yes the Landlord.

GlanACC

13:45 PM, 21st August 2023, About 9 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Tracy at 21/08/2023 - 13:17Oh, and if the rent is paid direct and if the council overpays by an error or whatever thay can claim it back from you. - Even worse than that if the tenant moves from one local authority to another, and money was owing from an overpayment ther then that can also be claimed from you. So in efect you could house a tenant with debts that you knew nothing about but may be held responsible for repaying them (the council don't tell you that this is all in the 'small print')

Reluctant Landlord

15:21 PM, 21st August 2023, About 9 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Tracy at 21/08/2023 - 13:17
I've looked at the detail of this in the UC guidelines about claiming this back from the LL and while this is possible, if you can prove that it is totally reasonable that you could have even known about a change of circumstance if there was one, then they will be unable to use this as a reason to demand repayment from the LL.

Like anything else they assume a LL wont contest it but read the regulations and you may be surprised what you can throw back at them. I've turned their own rules on them before now.

Reluctant Landlord

15:26 PM, 21st August 2023, About 9 months ago

Reply to the comment left by GlanACC at 21/08/2023 - 13:45
look at the 'small print' The guidelines for repayment from the LL are quite specific and THEY have to be able to show that its reasonable that the LL know about a partner moving in (for example.) If you do LL checks and take photos and there is no sign of partners shoes or clothing at the property, the AST states it is in sole occupancy (for example), how are you supposed to know exactly? A LL has no idea what a tenant claims for or not so it is UNREASONABLE to assume you could have known.

Rerktyne

15:49 PM, 21st August 2023, About 9 months ago

Look! I discovered in 1984 that being a landlord in this Parasite’s Paradise is futile! The latter are untouchable! The rest of is are crapped on!
So I got out: never, ever again! Let the councils house them. Then we can play “Watch the nervous breakdown” as we visit the local housing officers!
This country is in for a major problem if they keep on attacking the PRS!

Rerktyne

15:54 PM, 21st August 2023, About 9 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Rerktyne at 21/08/2023 - 15:49They make you house people who they wouldn’t let near their house! And they call themselves enlightened and Good Samaritans - with your livelihood! It’s like all the loony lefties I met in college: if you so much as took a pea off their plate they went bezoomny!

Mick Roberts

10:53 AM, 22nd August 2023, About 9 months ago

I think that may be an old link. As I got the Welfare Delivery MP Sir David Rutley to get this changed about 3 years ago. The new system gets Third Party Deductions paid every calendar month now same day as Housing Element payment.
Old system was every 4 weeks.

Reluctant Landlord

11:12 AM, 22nd August 2023, About 9 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 22/08/2023 - 10:53
its a link to the update on 15th August 2023 I think it was.

Ingrid Bacsa

17:26 PM, 22nd August 2023, About 9 months ago

Reply to the comment left by Rerktyne at 21/08/2023 - 15:49
Changes are coming, next few years:

The old council housing system was becoming increasingly too demanding for the councils who transferred responsibility onto private LLs, whilst still maintaining control of the sector.

The current nation wide rental system is too expensive and not working for the increasing numbers of renters in our country, costing the councils even more - hotels, B and B's etc, official checks and disputes and monitoring of landlord properties.

Mega landlords like the Blairs, will take over, bit like US Howard Johnson Motels and Hotels, random lets will become uniformed mass produced identical rentals all over the country.

Amateur small time landlords with our outdated random property lettings scattered everywhere, will be gone.

Then the power will shift back from the Council to these Mega rich Lords who can of course afford to update and standardize properties to meet climate change and safety regs.

They will take up the country's rental shortage burdens - along with new powers, and will freely enforce their own tenant regulation system, with low tolerance and swift evictions.. Look out bad tenants!

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