Thousands of older private renters in poverty due to LHA shortfall

Incredible, I would never have guessed that matching the LHA to the actual cost of accommodation would lift people out of poverty. It is fortunate that someone had the foresight to commission this research as without it nobody would have appreciated the “bleeding obvious”.

Reply to the comment left by The_Maluka at 23/04/2026 – 12:08
the gov would simply increase tax to compensate for the additional housing costs bill…..more taxpayer burden, forcing more to make benefit claims ……?

Tax spending is the biggest issue above all else. Spending what you don’t have on what you don’t need, always ends up in a crisis. Anything other than a full reset is just peeing in the wind.

Reply to the comment left by The_Maluka at 12:08
To have foresight you have to have competence.
The Renters Rights Act bans landlords from taking more than the advertised rent and also bans landlords from taking rent up front. Something that agents have flagged up in the run-up to implementation of the RRB is that some retired people have assets, but not sufficient income; so they can afford to pay rent but they cannot pass the credit-referencing checks. In effect, if the definition of poverty is income-based they can end up being homeless, i.e. unable to find a home even though they have got the cash to pay for it. They become older renters at risk of homelessness because of poorly conceived and poorly implemented legislation.
During its consultation on the Renters Rights Bill that became the Renters Rights Act the labour government was told that this was a potential problem, but they just were not listening. If government and political parties aspiring to government (like the Greens for example, currently banging on about rent controls) don not listen then unintended consequences happen. There is collateral damage. And just as the collateral damage of older people with assets being unable to rent is one consequence of being banned from making up front rent payments, it might be counter intuitive to people who are actually incompetent, but rising rents are a consequence of rent controls.
Stopping tenants from offering more than the advertised rent, or limiting rent increases also means that agents change their advice to landlords and advise that rents must be maximised, i.e. advertised at a premium, on first-letting a property. This again is a consequence of government and political parties not listening. It is not the fault of landlords…it is an indirect consequence of incompetence on the part of government, which has arisen as a consequence of a government with a left-wing majority being able to get bad legislation through parliament.