[solo3uk]

..why the Government says that when you rent a flat to a person on housing benefit paid by the Council, this latter pays the monthly rent to the tenant instead of the landlord, as it used to be. That benefit comes from the the taxpayer and it is solely to pay for the rent. So, why to pay the tenant to pay the landlord when that money belongs to the landlord?.

Isn`t the council putting a temptation on the tenant to keep the rent money?. If I was on that benefit the landlord would be the last one I would think about. I can think of a million things to spend £500 a month than to pay a landlord.

[Bluey]

Many countries pay the tenant the housing benefit, rather than directly to the landlord.

The principle reason why the government decided to scrap direct payments to the landlord was to encourage personal responsibility in the recipient, to empower them and encourage them to manage their own budgets.

This is the reason why many more landlords now no longer accept LHA (housing benefit) claimants - the risk of rent arrears is much greater now that the only modest form of protection (direct receipt of the payment) has been scrapped.

[Brightonman]

There is an exception, rent will still be paid to the landlord but only when it is in the tenats interest for instance when it is known that the tenant is known to be a problem payer or a recovering drug user or alchoholic but the risks of taking on tenants such as these are huge!

Of course if the tenant falls more than 8 weeks in arrears, the landlord can apply to housing benefits office for the benefit to be automatically paid to the landlord. The benefits office has a duty to do this.

[canine88]

What a moronic question to ask.

If you have not got enough decency to pay your rent, are stupid enough to get yourself into a lot of trouble by getting into arrears, get taken to court, have your credit rating ruined, and incur other negative consequences on your dumb backside, then even if your rent is paid to the landlord, you will still find a way of screwing him over with your stupidity and dishonesty, eg through not paying bills or damaging the property. What are you going to do if you don't pay your rent? You'll get evicted, you won't get any references from your landlord, so what agency or landlord will take you on afterwards? None. Plus if you get reported to credit agencies for not honouring your commitments or if the landlord decides to take it to court, you are in so much shit. Where are you going to live? The council won't pay you the benefit twice (after you wasted it) and the landlord will want you out. So what are you going to do other than live on the streets or on your family's carpet?

In most contracts it says that the tenant must be employed; that's why when you move into property, your work references will be checked. So first of all, almost no landlord will take you on, if they know you aren't employed and are on benefits. To them it means you are poor, you won't be able to pay your utility or any other bills, and you are vulnerable, so in case of trouble with you, the council will get involved and prevent them from evicting you and making you homeless. They don't want it. When you are getting evicted, the council gets involved and tries to negotiate with the landlord - no landlord wants this headache when they can have pleasant, working people able to afford their rent living in their property. The demand for properties is so high, they can cherry pick their tenants. Plus benefit claimants are perceived very negatively by the public in general. By rent paid directly to the tenant, the tenant can keep their unemployment discreet while they get back on their feet.

Then, if you lose a job (like it happened to me) your worst nightmare would be the landlord finding out about it. By having council benefit paid directly to me I could keep my situation discreet and therefore wasn't asked to leave. The council still screwed it up though and still got in touch with the landlord about that.

So what did you expect me or any other person in this situation to do - to move out onto the street while I was looking for a job (I obviously couldn't pay any rent as I had a zero income)? Would being homeless really help me to get another job and start paying my taxes again (which could be used to pay for your benefit should you come to need it - you don't know what may happen to you tomorrow)? You need to try and see a little bit further than your own nose.

To the comment that people should not be paid housing benefit - so what do you want, tons of homeless people on the street, or what? What is this going to improve? It won't help us save taxes, you will be spending your money on tackling crime or you won't be able to go out on to the street in broad daylight if we kick all the vulnerable people out onto the street, how can you live without any income without turning to crime. So do you want a third world country with a lot of crime? Go and live where you belong then. We are a rich, 21 century state which is meant to have social security and where poor and less fortunate than yourself people should get support. Another question is where this support is directed and that it gets into the wrong hands - to people who are here to collect tributes from "infidels" while they are planning to blow them up, who have infiltrated and are intimidating our society and are ruining our way of life, spit at our soldiers and our identity, and who get all the support from us before our own people or before anyone who has come here to contribute and who respect our country, our way of life and opportunities they have here, before those who deserve it. But this is a totally different question - those people on whose most of our tax bill is spent not only in benefits for their 4 wives and 30 children per head and their crimes tackling including gang rapes, child abuse, honour killings or any other horrors their "culture" typically comes with, this is an anit any common-sense situation middle and upper class retards got us into and our government that has sold us to their government.

There must be social housing available to anyone and social security (you can't have a luxury life of £60 per week off JSA), but it shouldn't go to scum that can't be even bothered to try and respect the country that has welcomed them and aren't even attempting to fit in, it all has been given to them for no reason. They came over hear to do jihad, sell their British passports to their countrymen so those can come over here and contribute to jihad.

And further to the reply from another person, why are you so worried about landlords and their well-being? Those are the people that ruined our economy and housing market, they are greedy, selfish, they keep properties empty and artificially drive house price up. The reason why you pay £800 for living in a box from a fridge in Cockfosters they call a flat is because of them, so why are you so eager to defend them? They rip you off and make tons of money while we are struggling, as far as I am concerned, we must bring in regulations to control those greedy animals and what they rent to us. Landlords are some of the biggest, nastiest scumbags and conmen we have.

[Bluey]

One reason why many landlords will not accept DSS tenants include the fact that now under LHA, they worry that the tenant will actually fail to prioritise payment of the rent. It is not surprising if the odd person who is poor enough to receive benefits cannot believe their luck in suddenly receiving a windfall of cash (backdates LHA claim) and blows it. This is hown by the OPs attitude. There's little a landlord can do if the tenant doe s this which is why many landlords are reluctant to let to risky tenants.

The reason why there is a housing crisis in this country has nothing to do with 'greedy' landlords.

The main reason is the loss of millions of social housing units because of the Tories 'right to buy' scheme which have not been replaced. Private andlords are not a branch of social service and do not let their properties out of a sense of social responsibility - its hardly their fault that the state expects landlords them to fill the vacuum.

Another reason why there are so many amateur buy to let landlords is because the government have ruined private and state pensions to such a degree that people are choosing to invest elsewhere.

Housebuilding has not kept up with population growth - immigration has increased, people are living longer, household units through divorce/separation/lifestyle choices means even more households are needed.

[clw1981]

It is hard enough to get a roof over your head when on benefits let alone see comments like this!

I am appalled that people tar all Housing Benefit claimaints with the same brush. Some of us do actually respect the property they rent.

Another thread will be set up me thinks!

[stephief]

[Brightonman]

Another couple of downsides of non working HB claimants is that a). they often spend many more hours in the property and therefore cause more wear and tear on the property than working people and b) they are often less concerned about the consequences of not paying paying the rent than working people.

The voice of experience!!!!!!!!

[colin44]

I had a tenant on HB ... The Council dragged thier feet in sorting the claim out, when they did pay up they gave nearly £1200 to my Tenant to pass on to me ,,, who in return did a bunk with what was MY £1200 !!!!

NEVER AGAIN

Colin