Refuse tenancies to benefits claimants, landlords urged

Posted: 20 Apr 2007 09:31:24 GMT

Buy-to-let landlords have been urged to refuse tenancies to housing benefit claimants following a change in payments to such people from the government.

Buy-to-let landlords have been urged to refuse tenancies to housing benefit claimants following a change in payments to such people from the government.

Under the new Local Housing Allowance, the money is paid to the claimants rather than landlords, a situation which has prompted the Residential Landlords Association (RLA) to warn its members that the situation will lead to non-payment of rent.

RLA chairman Lee Dribben said: "The money is often spent on other priorities instead of paying the rent and there are no winners from a situation that just encourages more rent arrears.

"Landlords can't afford to take that sort of financial loss on a routine basis while they chase defaulting tenants who have already spent their rent allowance on other things."

He added that it encouraged further debt for struggling tenants.

According to Department of Work and Pensions figures, rent arrears have increased by 77 per cent since the new allowance was introduced and 56 per cent of landlords have already abandoned the sector.

Chris Town, a Leeds-based member of the RLA, told Inside Housing that landlords should opt instead to rent to "better behaved" eastern European immigrants.


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