Shelter makes new claims on arrears and eviction thre...

Campaigning charity Shelter claims that last month 482,000 private renters were behind on their rent.

It also claims that 504,000 people have either received or been threatened with eviction in the last month.

The charity wants the government to unfreeze Local Housing Allowance Rates so people can afford their rent. It says that currently the LHA covers the cheapest third of rents in just three per cent of English local authorities.

“Almost a million private renters are at risk of being of being kicked out of their home this winter, and more will follow” says Shelter chief executive Polly Neate.

“Every day our emergency helpline advisers are taking gut-wrenching calls - from the mum who’s skipping meals to pay the rent to the family terrified they will be spending Christmas in a grotty homeless hostel.

“The government’s refusal to unfreeze housing benefit, when private rents are rising at record rates, means the rental crisis is fast becoming a homelessness emergency.”

Responding to Shelter’s claims Chris Norris - Policy Director for the National Residential Landlords Association - says: “The vast majority of landlords want to help tenants stay in their homes wherever possible.

“However, the Government needs to do more to support those most in need of help. This should include unfreezing housing benefit rates. It is simply absurd that support for housing costs is being linked to rents as they were three years ago, not as they are today.

“Ministers need also to address the supply crisis in the rental market. Recent tax hikes have served only to cut the number of homes available to rent, whilst demand continues to remain strong. All this is doing is driving rents up and making homes harder to access.

“We are working with the Government to ensure the system that replaces Section 21 repossessions is fair and workable for responsible landlords as well as tenants.

“This needs to include ensuring landlords can effectively tackle the problem of anti-social tenants and those building substantial rent arrears.”

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Jo Westlake
01 December 2022 09:50 AM

I don't really see why it would have any impact on other rents. A great many landlords won't rent to claimants (either employed or unemployed) because their income isn't sufficient to meet affordability referencing. That would prevent the landlord from obtaining Rent Guarantee Insurance and is a risk a great many landlords aren't willing or can't afford to take. Those rents are often already at market level. If they increase beyond comparables the landlord will start to experience voids.

At the cheaper end if anything becomes available at anywhere close to LHA the landlord will be inundated with applicants, some of which will be claiming UC and others will be fully self funding. We have a wide choice of applicants and just the more humane streak in us would push us towards someone who is better able to afford the rent. Deliberately allowing someone to sign a tenancy knowing that they are going to have to top up the rent from money that is supposed to be for food, heating or travel to work costs is just setting them up for misery. Bear in mind that when most people get a pay rise they get an increase in income.
When a UC claimant gets a pay rise the government take most of it off their Benefit top up.
Freezing the LHA prevents low income tenants from finding a new home and potentially from retaining their existing home. There are plenty of other factors that will make the retention of lower cost homes incredibly challenging such as EPC requirements and massively increased BTL mortgage rates. Ludicrously low LHA is the one thing the government can easily address. It was only ever supposed to cover the 30th percentile rent. The alternative of housing tens of thousands of people in hotels and temporary housing would be horrifically expensive.

We do need increased supply but with the current tax regime and new build house sales plummeting (and with it the Social Housing percentage of new build estates) I can't see the supply side easing any time soon. Scrapping Section 24 would bring a few holiday lets back into the long term market, retain the viability of the highly leveraged landlords and allow the rest of us to keep rent increases a bit more modest but that's about the only quick fix. Retaining Section 21 would retain some properties and clarifying the EPC requirements would help. Anything that slows down the exodus of landlords is about the best the government could hope for in the current climate.

Nick Van Hoogstraaten
01 December 2022 09:15 AM

The world's supply of lifeboats has already been secured by the smuggling gangs in Europe for the continued invasion across the English Channel. There are simply not enough lifeboats to go around anymore.