A string of debt advice charities want Housing Secretary Michael Gove to go well beyond merely banning Section 21 in a bid to help tenants further.
The charities - StepChange, Money Advice Trust, Citizens Advice, and Christians Against Poverty, alongside the Law Centres Network - have written to Gove urging him to prioritise the Renters Reform Bill in this parliamentary session and calling for stronger measures in the Bill for private renters experiencing financial difficulty.
New polling by YouGov for StepChange claims private renters are twice as likely to be in problem debt as the average person, while more than half (53%) of private renters say they’ve found it difficult to keep up with bills and credit commitments in the past few months.
The charities claim record average private rents are driving “low financial resilience” among private tenants, especially those with vulnerabilities like ill-health but are unable to be placed in the social housing sector.
The charities are calling for a new Tenancy Support Programme, which would mirror the Pre-Action Protocol that exists for social tenants in rent arrears. This would introduce “reasonable steps private landlords must take to support tenants in financial difficulty to sustain tenancies wherever possible, including referring them to benefits advice and seeking to agree an affordable repayment plan for arrears.”
These steps would be hardened by giving judges discretion to suspend eviction proceedings where these steps have not been taken.
The charities claim strong public support for this approach: they say 72% of UK adults agree that private landlords should be required to offer their tenants an affordable repayment plan before being allowed to pursue eviction.
Richard Lane of StepChange Debt Charity says: “We’re currently experiencing a crisis of housing affordability which is leaving millions of private renters on the cusp of falling into problem debt simply because they do not have the income to cover exorbitant rents alongside rising essential costs.
“While a mortgage holder or social tenant has the security of knowing that their lender or housing provider will follow a process of engagement and support if they fall into a difficult spot with their finances, private renters are not afforded the same protections.
“At StepChange we see far too many financially vulnerable private renters who should be in socially rented homes, with living costs alone forcing them to resort to borrowing. It’s essential that they’re provided with dignity and security to stay in their homes should they be faced with a life shock that impacts their finances.”
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One of the biggest problems is the 5 week wait for UC.
It's not such a problem if someone needs to move after going on to UC because the Local Authority will do whatever it takes to get a new tenancy up and running with rent in advance as per the tenancy agreement. There is a huge amount of help and support to ensure those tenants receive every handout available.
It when previously self funding tenants moved onto UC that problems occur. Firstly the 5 week wait with rent paid in arrears, secondly a far higher risk of sanctions for minor errors with the online journal as they are not experienced claimants, thirdly a massive drop in income compared with when they were working and difficulty renegotiating contracts for mobile phones, broadband, gym membership, etc for several months. The lack of support is staggering and it's easy to see how debt problems occur. One real issue is that the landlord is pretty much excluded from any process that may exist so it's a bit ridiculous saying we should offer more help. A lot of us would be far more willing to give previously good tenants a bit of slack if we weren't expected to behave as charities. The government needs to recognise a tenancy agreement is a contract and rent must be available to be paid as per contract.
As usual Jo, right on the money. I have only ever had one tenant with money problems. The husband had a severe back problem & worked irregularly - I always worked with them to allow them to stay in the house until they eventually moved on.
Many LLs already help their tenants but we are mostly small businesses & don't have the financial wherewithal to carry huge arrears. No other small business is expected to help in this way.
Any of these charities offering to pay the landlords’ mortgages? Thought not.
Hey how about the charity clears the debt and then sorts a payment scheme with the tenant. That works better for me
I am sure most private landlords give their tenants some leeway if they run into sudden hardship.. But we are not Social Landlords.. We are a business and need the income, including to pay mortgages.. In my experience, as a property manager for 30 years in both the private and public sector, the vast majority of rent defaulters are to blame for their arrears. This includes a failure to pursue any benefit claims or spending the rent benefit on drugs, alchool or gambling or luxuries.
You forgot cigarettes.
And holidays
Sorry mate I can't pay my rent my benefits have been stopped--- the biggest lie of all time!
How about, 'I can't pay my rent this month as I've got to pay for my holiday'? Or 'I'm sorry my rent is late, I'll pay you as soon as I get back from my holiday'?
Tricia like the woman who deducted 200 from her rent in December because she was short of money for Christmas, I'll make it right in January--- which of course she didn't so now i've increased her rent, so she will be paying for that one until she leaves, soon I hope.
Absolutely pathetic. As already said these people aren’t offering to pay for the tenants themselves.
Gove to force Landlords into Bankruptcy plain & simple for the Big Boys to take over and aren’t they swarming in, brand new never involved before but now given every advantage to take over.
Licensing that doesn’t apply to them, Removing Section 21 to make our Business untenable, the introduction of of those ridiculous unjustifiably fixed Penalties £5/10/20/30k for fun. None of their business whether we want to sell, move in, or move in a relative who thought up that crap. The definition of Private Freehold Property will have to be redefined as not belonging to the owner you morons, how dare you tell us what we can do with our acids in a Democracy.
Also the ridiculous extortionate legal fee always added on with no justification whatsoever but they are Regulated by Financial Regulatory Authority that’s alright then charge what you like.
"These steps would be hardened by giving judges discretion to suspend eviction proceedings where these steps have not been taken." Basically what they are trying to push through, is making Section 8 Ground 8, which is mandatory, the same as Ground 10 and 11 which are discretionary. First they were seeking the abolition of Section 21, now they want Section 8 watered down. And you know what? They will get it, when the Trotskyites get in in the next general election.
We all know where this is heading, turning us into the SRS 🤐😱🏃♂️
Labour into power in 2024.
Reform into power in 2027 - hope everything isn't irretrievably trashed by then!
Look at what happened in Northern Ireland. The two "moderate" parties, the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists - who tried to please everyone and ended up pleasing no-one, have been largely replaced by the two extreme parties, the DUP and Sinn Fein who are only interested in pleasing their own supporters.
The Conservatives will be forced to return to their roots, go into coalition with Reform, or go into oblivion.
Labour will return to Corbynism which is currently only under the surface and trash the economy.
There was very little difference between Blair and Cameron, or even Boris, but we need a difference because the middle ground isn't helping anyone.
Robert, I suspect if Labour win the election either Starmer will be ousted and replaced by the flame-haired one or similar, or the far left will manoeuvre behind the scenes and take control.
My hope is that enough people vote REFORM to stop Labour having a massive majority. Remember they will be fighting off the Muslim element standing against them.
AL
The really scary thing about the flame haired one is that there's only about 16 years between the generations, so there could be six generations of those genes alive at the same time, five of whom would have the vote!
Well said. As stated most of us understands a bump in the road and are willing to help tenants. It is a sad experience in my case that at about 3-1 tenants have not met and adhered to the agreements that have been put in place. They either leave owing me money or I need to evict them, which adds more to costs.
These charities are living in cloud cuckoo land if they cannot understand the real issues.
As to the comments on Reform, I hope they do get in and i and my family will be voting for them. To me it does not matter if blue or red get in, they are both rubbish. The system needs a re-boot and i hope that Reform can do it.
I’m so pleased we made a homeowner guarantor mandatory since the plandemic, most of our stock now is covered
If the plan is to get small landlords out and big companies in, well that's a bust as we know John Lewis have already got cold feet, and banks etc are not going to be too happy with large numbers of repossession proceedings and bad debts. Gove needs to wake up and tell these activists they are causing more harm than good. As for Ben at the NRLA is he related to Gove?
that's right John the big boys won't stand for the sh1t that we do
I wonder what will happen when btl mortgages need renewed and easy repossession is no longer possible?
The harder they make it for Landlords, the higher the risk for Landlords. This means the vetting & referencing process will be much stricter. It will hurt low income & benefit Tenants because Landlords won’t be able to risk renting to them.
If they are saying, the law should allow Tenants to stay longer in the properties without paying rent, many landlords will default on the mortgages.
Maybe introduce a law, if the tenant falls more than 2 weeks in rent arrears, they legally need to attend a financial & debt course.
You are absolutely correct James. I would have to be much stricter with the vetting process of if this transpires. I can see Landlords insisting on guarantors.
Landlord are charging higher rents because food is exorbitant, fuel prices exorbitant, house prices exorbitant, building materials/repair work exorbitant-need I go on? The salaries of charity executives also exorbitant.
See my post above. Btl mortgages will become impossible to get or renew.
The big banks could stop the Tories from being too stupid but will have less influence over Labour.
FFS! Are these utter w@nkers really equating a private Landlord to a Mortfage LENDER or a BANK !!?? All this means is landlords will not touch any prospective Tenants who are on benefits, have children (the nightmare single Mum) aren't anything other than 10star financially and dont have a Home Owner Guarantor.
Even Higher rents as more landlords are pushed (as is the goal) to sell up. In fact selling everything up and moving to another Country is really starting to appeal.
I've stopped renting to families in Scotland.
English families should be very very scared by what is about to happen to their chances of finding anywhere to rent, even if they can afford it!
Landlords do a deal with tenants? We have been doing that for years, a few of mine have hit a rocky patch and it has always been ok if they say they have a problem. We work around it and over a couple of months crinkles ironed out and back to normal.
Now with this lot involved plus the other Crackpots, there is no workaround especially as they all get involved and advise them not to pay, quote mental health, dig in and sit tight and wait until the bailiffs turn up (at least 6 months). So since this rhetoric has started it is straight to get rid and move on.
Who faults is that Michael, Ben, Ben, Craw, Polly, Nationwide??
Don't forget Captain Darling.
I’m not against supporting tenants and I have. But why? Why is it as a private individual it’s an issue for me to prop up another private individuals finances. I totally get Sarah’s comment. This country is bankrupt. Finished. Now all that’s left is the bones to pick and unfortunately it’s ours!
Once landlords have been totally wiped out who will be the next whipping boys?
All the self employed they hate us all
“We’re currently experiencing a crisis of housing affordability" so why do you think that's happening???
Could it be that reduced rental property supply is the result of LL's are being driven to sell up, at the same time as there is increased demand for property, all being driven by excessive PRS regulation, excessive taxation of the PRS, the removal of LL's basic rights over property, the suggestion of the removal of section 21 under the proposed RRB?? Now these fools what to put even more pressure on LL's by requiring LL to work with tenants on arrears. Your going to bankruptcy the LL's which will only result in the tenants being evicted by the mortgage provider.
Would it not be better to remove the core issues driving LL out of the sector, thus increasing supply which will drive down prices and give the confidence to LL that they can get their property back when needed. Making it more default to evict non paying tenants, only serves to drive LL out of the market.
Good points there Bruce, it will be interesting to see how many landlords who have mortgages with The Mortgage Works then default. Will TMW then kick people out seeing as their parent company Nationwide are sponsoring shelter to the tune of millions?
All eminently sensible, so no chance of it happening.
U.K. politics is poison.
And still the government will not admit that the crisis in rented accommodation is largely of their own making!
Headlines like this freak me out and make me feel insecure. My properties are my pension. Who is going to help me if I cant pay the mortgages? I've always helped my tenants when they've had difficulties and it means I have loyal tenants who are all now upwardly mobile. I discovered that the main issue is that they are not very financially aware but three out of the four have asked me to advise them on how they can work towards buying their properties from me. I think one will be in a position to do so next year and the others now know what to work towards. It's not affordability, they just did't understand about credit ratings and how to build up a good score. The government want to push out small landlords in favour of large foreign investment companies who have no personal interest in the properties or the tenants and they are succeeding. I have a year to learn about other ways to invest. Maybe in overseas property.
I agree it's another scary thought, but as landlords we have to stay calm in the face of all this nonsense. There are lots of stupid ideas around, and if any of them get anywhere near the statute book then so many landlords will sell up that it will be a crisis of such scale that they will have to backtrack. It will make the current "housing crisis" look like a minor inconvenience. There is already a steady stream of landlords selling up, and they can't even house those people, so opening the floodgates is not going to make any political party look very good.
WL, it is exactly that train of thought that is keeping me in property and not selling for the time being. We can see this with Sunak reversing EPC and Gove backtracking, the 50 MP's who are waiting in the background will be the ones to watch.
The Scottish prs legislation is already beginning to work in favour of landlords. The real pain only lasted about 5 years, mostly due to Covid.
My best flat has had its rent go up from £1600 per month in 2017 to £2100 in 2018 to £2800 per month in 2023. I'm looking at a further increase of 6% to 12% this year, totally permissable under the current SNP rent "control " legislation.
Focusing on students avoids being landed with sitting tenants.
Families have real problems finding affordable rental properties currently in Scotland.
There will be a roll back once politicians become more honest or are found out.
Conclusive Admission by Tenant groups, that Sec 21 is # Not No fault, - but often Debt - related !
Gove'ment have been sold a pup,
Tenants can't have their cake, and eat it. ( and have cake paid for by their landlord ! )
I agree I have owned a single property for over 20 years Always let out as my circumstances changed, for the better, very soon after completion The only time I had to evict a tenant was a lot of years ago for non payment of rent Kept saying he would pay but didn't Left the day after the notice was served
Fault or Not its our property and we are entitled to have our property back no ifs ands or buts
A Contract is a Contract for the agreed period between the parties regardless of whether they are Students or not everyone should be treated the same.
They forget that 43% of “landlords “ are ordinary people with one property who worked hard and managed to save something and decided to invest it in a house or retirees who also saved all their life to help themselves a bit as pensions are a joke.
Stealing from us to donate to non working people because they struggle is counterproductive. That’s 20% of the PRS, which could disappear suddenly. They do not just offend professional landlords who also work to support their families, but attack all of us.
We are not faceless greedy monsters, just ordinary people who are no different that anyone else. Just trying to survive .
Ah, so that's how you shut these comments down is it? You threaten to screenshot the most racist ones (not hard to find) and send them to national newspapers. Good to know.
I believe Private Landlords always try to help Tenants when there’s a Rent payment problem, I have often taking a hit if they are genuine, for example I had a Tenant pay half rent for 6 months who shared with 4 others joint & several Agreement Contact, the 4 were in agreement no jealously there
some people still have a heart.
You are not not going to get that slack from Corporate giants they’ll keep you to the letter of the Law with their legal team.
Agreed Michael, we have all been there and helped tenants out.
I helped a tenant is hard times until she owed me a years rent. She then obtained a Debt Relief Order which essentially wipes out her obligation to pay the debt, but the debt still remains and can be used to evict her. Section 8 issued and the judge advised her to find some disrepair - way beyond his remit I am sure. Her legal aid solicitor is now trying to get £30,000 compensation for the 'dreadful' conditions under which she is forced to live.
Never again will I help a tenant in trouble or take any benefit tenant, for it is always the benefit tenants who default.
It’s the oldest trick there is that the self-righteous government uses: you pretend to care then force someone else to do the caring. That person is the LL and if he complains then he is a meany! Why stop there? You could order the landlord to buy the tenant’s food, clothe her kids, buy TV license, throw in some trainers and generally adopt them!
I am soooo glad I left AST! So are my friends. We have taken more than 20 properties out of circulation and leave them empty or let guests use them. It’s a protest!
And worse, I have been told by the local council to clean the flat that the able bodied tenant made dirty. Whatever happened to “behaving in a tenant like manner” (Lord Denning)?
@ TheMaluka, Sadly that judgement, although still binding, is ignored by councils, courts, Polly Bleat, Generation Rant etc.
Sometimes, I ponder upon what the political END GAME is to the lack of affordable housing. There appears to be one brewing, but I am not convinced I know what it is.
These associations and campaign group's are on a different planet.
Landlords are appealing to the government to intervene and compel courts to facilitate agreements, thereby securing possession orders and addressing issues such as high interest rates and mortgage arrears.
Despite these pleas, it appears that these concerns are not being effectively addressed by the authorities.
Landlord's are leaving industry for good, wake up please!
What the charities propose, - ask for is nothing short of Communism !!!
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