how do you rent a flat when on housing benefit?
Friday, July 9th, 2010 at
7:42 pm
my partner is on incapacity benefit and i have recently been made redundant, we cant find any properties to rent as all say no dss and housing benefit, any ideas where to look?
Sell and Rent Back
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A loan form the house of plenty, namely Job center +
If you were made redundant and received redundancy money you will have to spend that first . The local council will have to put you in B&B, well they find you something. Thats if you have lived in the area for min of 5 years.
go to your local housing authority they should be able to provide you with landlords who will take dss tenants. If you have been made redundant though you may not be eligble for benefit if you have had a redundancy payout. and before you think of hiding any money in someone elses account they will check!!!!! Your partner being on incapacity benefit will not have any bearing on your housing situation im afraid
have you tried the estate agents? i know 3 people who were in a similar position who went to an estate agency and were given a property by them, then the housing benefit pays the rent on their behalf.
That’s a tough one as you are right that most do say no dss. You will find the ones that take dss are in the rougher areas. When you look in the local paper at the rentals there are some that don’t say either way so phone all those up and at least ask. They are around but few and far between. Sometimes the dss office has a list of them,perhaps you could ask them and also occasionally an estate agent that deals in rentals has a list so go in the shop and ask them too.
Councils and housing associations are happy to accept housing benefit, but the downside to that is that you can wait years to be housed.
I would still contact the council because they have lists of private landlords whose properties they have vetted as being safe ( gas and electric tests) and who are more likely to accept HB. Also, contact landlords that do not say ‘ No DSS ‘. Depending on your age and circumstances, I think a lot would happily accept you. It would mean you having to jolly the council along to pay him because some can take months to process a HB claim. Manchester takes 2 years.
Not all landlords are so ignorant and prejudiced against people claiming HB. The ones you have come across will have huge mortgages on the property and are relying on the gullible to pay it off for them. In today’s climate this is ridiculous. You would think that they would be grateful to get a tenant that the rent is guaranteed. Still, many will be bankrupt soon and the properties bought by councils/HA to house you anyway.
A friend of mine rents out houses and he says he has less hassle off HB claimants than those who pay the rent themselves.
I think we will see the day when such notices stating ‘ No DSS’ are illegal. Landlords can no longer say ‘ no blacks, no Irish ‘ etc. Why should ‘ No DSS ‘ be any different?
Another suggestion is to move to a different area. Some places in the north/midlands have empty properties crying out to be let.