Changes To The Housing Benefit System Means That The Safety Net For Tenants Without Rent Protection Insurance Is Shrinking Fast If a tenant loses their job, and the landlord doesn’t have Rent Protection, the changes to the Housing Benefit (HB) system could mean that the tenants rented home is no longer safe. Previously, working tenants [...]

Rent Protection Insurance Useful For UK PRS Landlords Following the news story that broke in January about Fergus Wilson giving notice to over 1000 benefit tenants in his rental property portfolio in Kent, because he was fed up with tenants living in permanent rent arrears, more landlords are following his lead. Thousands of UK private [...]

  UK landlords are concerned about the impact Universal Credit will have on the private rented sector 70% of landlords who currently let rental property to tenants claiming housing benefits are worried the welfare reforms will have a negative effect on their business, according to the National Landlords Association (NLA). 75% of Landlords with larger [...]

There has been a general slump in the number of private landlords in the UK who are willing to take applications from people on benefits and local authorities are being warned that they need to take action. As previously reported, http://blog.legal4landlords.com/welfare-reform-is-bad-news-for-landlords-and-tenants , there is now a significant fall in the number of landlords even willing [...]

Millions of property owners and tenants renting property in the Private Rented Sector (PRS) are resorting to extreme measures including high interest pay day loans to avoid eviction as well as trying to make ends meet after falling behind on monthly housing payments. According to a new report by homelessness charity Shelter, nearly 8 million [...]

The Residential Landlords Association (RLA) and homless charity Crisis say that UK court orders to evict defaulting tenants in the Private Rental Sector have risen by more than 70% over the past 3 years. Homeless charity Crisis analysed Ministry of Justice figures to reveal that within the last 12 months some 36,211 landlords have been [...]

Universal Credit Creates Rent Arrears Storm A parliamentary debate held earlier this month (September) saw MPs from both sides of the house getting a little hot under the collar, arguing about how payment of the new Universal Credit benefit, due to be introduced next year, should be made. Universal credit is set to take over from Local [...]

The proposed Universal Credit system due to be introduced in April 2013 is set to replace existing benefits, including housing benefit, will put thousands of social (council and housing associations) and thousands more Private Rental Sector (PRS) landlords at a much higher level of financial risk. The current system of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) or [...]

Under the next wave of welfare reforms, new rules set to be introduced next year, mean that the housing benefit allowance of the new Universal Credit system, will not be paid directly to landlords. Instead the Government proposes that all payments will be paid directly to tenants, even if they are vulnerable or in arrears! [...]

A landlord’s right to receive direct rent payments from a local authority for tenants in receipt of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) or Housing Benefit (HB) will be scrapped under the proposed new Universal Credit (UC) benefit system. Therefore it is widely predicted that even more landlords will potentially withdraw from the LHA market as there [...]