Calls are growing for a legal crackdown on adverts which specify ‘No DSS’ tenants.
In Scotland, housing minister Kevin Stewart has condemned landlords who reject tenants on benefits.
He has said that both landlords and letting agents acting on their behalf could be stripped of their ‘fit and proper persons’ status.
Stewart said that it is looking at how statutory guidance for local authorities could be strengthened.
Meanwhile in Manchester, Rabbi Robyn Ashworth-Steen has written an impassioned piece in the Evening News, calling for ‘No DSS’ adverts to be phased out.
She says the ads are comparable to the ‘no blacks, no Irish’ signs of the past.
She cites a friend, Fatima, who is a carer with vulnerable dependants. Recently moved to Manchester, she has never been in rent arrears.
However, every letting agent she has approached tell her the same thing: No DSS.
She particularly singles out lettings platform OpenRent, which freely admits that two-thirds of ads on its site are discriminatory.
She also wants Manchester City Council to prohibit discriminatory advertising that can be accessed on its public websites.
A response from OpenRent cites wider problems, including referencing companies that automatically fail tenants who rely on benefits, and Universal Credit being paid in arrears.
The full piece, together with responses from OpenRent and Manchester City Council, can be found here:
I would never condone No DSS on Adverts ( even if DSS still existed) and I think every tenants should be assessed on their income wherever it comes from. Along side being assessed by other things – references, ability to prove they make regular payments to any creditors including – previous Landlords and their finances look robust – but there is a much much bigger issues here – WHY do so many agents / Landlords say no benefit tenants?
We are the same as any other industry, we use historical information and data to assess risk to our business. Historically we ( and probably a lot of other agents/ Landlords) find that where there are issues with rent / properties not being looked after properly / tenants not being able to prioritising rent payments over other things – usually comes from the sector who’s income comes from benefits. That’s our general experience. We hear from a few tenants on benefits things like – I’m not paying rent because I’ve no money to feed my children. – Frequently their benefit income is higher than a couple who are working and paying for childcare – and who generally do not get into rent arrears.
There are also small issues like the benefit system have a clause that if anyone is found to be getting benefits either by error or fraud it will be reclaimed from the agents and Landlord – so we have to be 100% sure that claimants are fully entitled to all the money they are claiming? – what agent / Landlord would be happy guaranteeing that?
and of course there is the reasons of mortgage companies and insurance companies stating no unemployed or benefit tenants, I know that is changing – but we are a quite a bit off that yet.
There is a reason there are so many adverts stating no benefits and it needs to be looked at from a very different angle – but I still don’t condone or do it.
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The usual virtue-signalling and threats of punitive action by people who don’t understand the complexity of the PRS – with even the Church butting in now – with no understanding or even acknowledgement of the additional risks to landlords’ businesses of taking on tenants on benefits. They should be proposing positive solutions rather than implying landlords ‘discriminate’ out of some caprice, rather than landlords’ need to ensure that the rent is received and the home looked after in order for the landlord to pay their bills.
I wrote a whole piece on this on 118 and sent it to Greg Beales at Shelter. The answer I received from him didn’t address many of the points I made. They behave like politicians, ignoring the genuine barriers rather than admitting they exist and seeking to solve them – eg through Shelter setting up a bond scheme. That would at least be showing willing. The usual do what I say and not do as I do. Frankly, if they are so concerned they should be setting themselves up as housing providers.
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Agree with the first comment – you have to be able to take each case on it’s merits. It’s a sad fact that every legal eviction that I’ve had to do has involved tenants on benefits. In the past 5 years I’ve had maybe 20 houses completely trashed – same sad fact. On the other side of that coin – the longest residing tenants on my books are all HB tenants – upwards of 8 years for all of them. No payment problems whatsoever. There are people who play the benefits system – and we all have them – and the reality is, if they’re happy to lie to and cheat the state, then the likelihood is that they’re not going to too bothered about looking after a landlords property or paying their rent. Once a landlord has had one of those – they’re risk averse.
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All OpenRent adverts say ‘No DSS’ in bold on Rightmove. Interesting as I thought that this practice had been stamped out by Rightmove but like most things in this industry, people say one thing and do another….
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I agree with the Rabbi and see ‘No DSS’ as a form of discrimination. With two of my part-time staff members in receipt of benefits due to them both being abandoned by feckless partners on the arrival of a child I have seen first hand the view from the other side.
Equally, if a prospective tenant enters my office seeking accommodation reeking of booze or pot they won’t be renting from me if they are DSS funded or not.
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“No DSS” is not a form of discrimination. People are trying to make it discriminating for political reasons.
“No DSS” is no different to part of the vetting process of the suitability of a tenant that a private landlord within the PRS wishes to take as a risk with their asset. Many landlords welcome DSS benefits. Next people will be saying that landlords have no rights to who they will rent to and lenders can give money to people who have no guaranteed income! “NO DSS” isn’t about people who are on benefits, its they have no guaranteed income. 2.5m people unable to afford their rent or mortgage in the private sector.
What people are objecting to is the right of the landlord to confirm the type of tenant they will accept upfront and save everyone time wasting.
People with no guaranteed income to pay the rent or chase after with any hope of recovering losses, often running into the £k’s are high risk. Tunnel vision and a complete lack of understanding of risk issues with “DSS” created by either the tenants or the DSS system has created the mess.
No-one has the right to tell a landlord who they can have as a tenant. It is for the landlords to decide and all that is happening is landlords are still refusing DSS regardless of “NO DSS” or not. All that is happening is it is going underground and delusional to believe will not go away.
PRS is not social housing sector. It is the SHS forcing its way into PRS!
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We dropped ‘no dss’ a long time ago, replaced by ‘working applicants only’,-for where the landlord requires it. There are a whole lot of people needing housing out there that work and still have to claim for a variety of reasons. Indeed, there are genuine long term ill who cant work that we will assess individually.
The rest are the councils responsibility.
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3 bedroom pig shed for rent DSS Welcome, no pets!
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