UK Landlord Forum / Life

Morning all

I'm a novice at this and this is my first time renting a property out...

I have decided to rent my property to the council for 3 years (minimum tearm )

What do I do about the agreement side of things like the tenancy aggrement, and is there one on here I can purchase,

I am currently in the process of getting it ready and hope to have it completed and ready to rent by March.

Many thanks

Thanks

That's not being a Landlord. That's something else.

Lol like what I'm sure you can explain in English for me....

Thanks

Councils have their own standard agreement

You won't have to produce a one sided legal agreement that will have been drafted by lawyers that will grossly benefit one party to the agreement.  The council will do this and get you to sign it.

Below is who you can expect to be put in your house / flat and private sector IS, I repeat, targets the following to put in your property.

Target Group
· Alcohol/ drug problems
· Homeless families
· Single homeless
· Learning disabilities
· Mental health
· Offenders
· Physical or sensory disabilities
· Teenage parents
· Gypsies/ travellers
· People at risk of domestic violence
· Young people
· Older people
· HIV/ Aids

Not my idea of 'landlording'

Enfieldone

I won't comment on the type of tenant you will get (done above) but just to help you go into this with your eyes open...are you aware of Section 16 of the Social Security Administration Act 1997?

What this means is that if the council determines that the tenant should not have a been getting rent benefit they can RETROPSECTIVELY ask you to pay them back (including withholding payment of future rent to you).

For me this has been too scary a concept to consider renting to a council.

Admittedly the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006, Part 13, Section 101(2) states that, where the overpayment arose as a consequence of a misrepresentation the recovery should take place from the person who misrepresented or failed to disclose that material fact so that would be the tenant not the landlord..

There are still many many cases of LHA Overpayment recovery ...in fact the DWP actually pays a 40% bonus to the council for recovery of overpayment!!!!

What you need to check is are you still exposed to this LHA Overpayment recovery issue or is that specifically excluded from your agreement/doesn't apply as the council are not counting payment to you as LHA benefit. The councils near me last time I checked still had this in their agreement.

Once you know that then you are a little better informed to make a decision.

As to the agreement as I posted earlier you need to contact the council they will have a ready made "we can screw you any time we like" agreement. Read carefully! It will most likely be a common law agreement and so everything you think you know about ASTs won't apply.

Don't forget...
Check your insurance terms
Check your mortgage terms

Best of luck (do let us know how you get on).

Wow now I see your points....

I guess the best way is to rent it out to the private sector with a guarantor then...

This property is not yet ready to rent but I hope to get it ready by March.

All I can say is a massive thanks to you all for pointing this out...

This property is a 3 bed massionete it's the same layout as a town house except it does not have a garage underneath it. It is an independent studio flat that is nothing to do with me.

I've done a lot of reading on this site and will now go and do a lot more...

Thanks again

I'm impressed you've taken it on board.

Just bear in mind these are just opinions.
There was a person JEWELS on this website who did seem to be very clued in on the whole council thing.
Maybe she has an opinion, you could PM her to see what she thinks.

Best of luck

Thanks I would be silly not to take it on board really, angry landlord that's great I will try and PM them and see what they say.

How do I send a PM to JEWELS any one please?

Depending on the outcome of the PM I may need to do it all myself.... Mmmm
Also
Is the tenancy agreement on here for tenants non smoking and no pets ok or what?
Is the guarantor form ok.

I've been reading again and again the guide for first time landlords...

I think the best way to advertise is on the net and have decided to go with (when ready)  Upad, do they do sufficient credit checks as well or do I need someone else to do that.

Lots of questions again sorry....

Thanks

I've now worked out how to send a PM to JEWELS....

many thanks

I think Angry Landlord and Enfieldone are talking at crossed purposes.  Enfieldone is asking about leasing the property to the authority for a number of years.  In that case the rent will be paid to Enfieldone at an agreed rate whatever happens; voids or not.  It is called a Private Sector Leasing (PSL).  This is where the authority (or sometimes a housing association) takes the property for an agreed period and lets it to whomever they want and at the end of that period it is handed back to Enfieldone.  He won't need to do anything in that period, except collect the rent.  All issues are dealt with by the authority   He will get whatever monthly or four weekly rate is agreed (and maybe an upfront payment as an incentive!).  LHA won't be relevant in that case.

Angry Landlord seems to be speaking about letting directly to tenant(s) who claim HB.  That is a different subject altogether. 

In either case, it isn't as doomy or gloomy as Riptide has made out.  What we landlords (yes, I do have a small portfolio of my own!) should bear in mind is that it depends on the council you deal with as to whether or not you get a good service as indeed it depends on the landlord you deal with in the private sector. 

I ran a rent deposit guarantee scheme for my local authority for many years.  This was where a private landlord agreed to let their property to someone in need through the council and the council found them a tenant and underwrote the initial deposit.  The relationship then was between the landlord and the tenant BUT with a dedicated member of staff (me) on hand throughout the tenancy to give assistance and advice.

We were always very circumspect about whom we took and whom we placed where.  Our authority scrutinised those earmarked for this type of accommodation to within an inch of their life. 

Before even considering them for the private sector we  undertook far reaching financial checks on the tenant by asking for at least three months of every bank account they owned and they were searched with a fine tooth comb and any irregularity questioned very closely.  If irregularities were found and no reasonable explanation was forthcoming, no help was given.  ALL income was verified and extensive credit checks done.  We also undertook a feasibility study to see if the tenant could afford to private rent. 

Having a full time member of staff dedicated to this sector meant that we had excellent relations with the private sector landlords.  In this scheme the authority did not assume management of the property.  However, I trained with the NFOPP to get my qualification for property management so was able to give advice as needed throughout the tenancy.  Advice given throughout the tenancy included such things as working out arrears, advising on how and when to serve notices, liaising with and getting HB paid direct to the landlord if necessary and working with the tenant to make sure they didn't fall into arrears to begin with.  We were also very fair when paying for damages/arrears at the end of the tenancies.  The other thing with this particular local authority is that they never ask the landlord to take the tenant to court before offering alternative accommodation.  This was automatically given at the end of the S21 (or S8). 

So saying this, I do recognise that this may not be the level of care that other authorities take with their private sector landlords, which is a pity because judging from the comments above it seems that councils are not liked by the private sector.   

Thanks for the clarification Jewels
I did wonder if the scheme that Endfieldone was working on didn't count as LHA being paid to the landlord and so didn't have that exposure, which is actually why I thought he should get you involved.

In the rent deposit guarantee scheme given that the relationship is between the landlord and the tenant is it still possible for the landlord then to lose out through local housing allowance overpayments?

I had another look again and
Croydon council in my area have a Croybond (rent deposit) scheme but this still means the LHA is paid to the landlord and there isn't  anything on their website that closes this exposure of LHA overpayment.

They also have the private sector leasing scheme this bit seems to a be new thing for them as they have subcontracted it all out to a number of agencies, you no longer deal with the council and so the agent fee comes out of what you would get from the council.  I wonder if these agents are as scrupulous as you have been when selecting tenants.  I will get the T&Cs and see if the landlord is still exposed to overpayment reclaim.

I judge from your post that this subcontracting out is a new development?

Thanks for the input.





Appreciate the answers.

Oh I've had look and the council has sub-contracted to bunch of High Street agencies that provide rent guarantee schemes...
It doesn't even look like the council is involved.

Jewels per your much earlier posts there is definitely a business case for you...   (at least in London)

Council schemes are going to have to become a lot more favourable before many Landlords in the private rental sector would contemplate getting involved. I think what Jewels has described goes only some small way to allaying some concerns... the angle of not intentionally providing advice regarding drawing-out a Section 21 process is well thought-out, it's a real problem for Landlords... but there needs to be more. The Council should, ideally, not be perceived as being on one side or the other - both parties need a fair, guiding hand - even if their only true responsibility is to homing these Tenants. After all, both parties need each other at the end of the day... plus, it's the Landlord's who'll be paying Council Tax at full rate (for their own properties, which might be in the local area) whereas these (sometimes) down-and-out Tenants will not - so the Council needs to understand and accept who is funding them (all of us, and not the down-and-outs)... gosh, I do get that that sounds really quite right-wing.

My first comment about that not being a Landlord was describing that this is more like being a property investor - of the silent type - you've bought some property and you just sit back and collect rent with no further knowledge or involvement with what's actually going on... that's not being an actual Landlord, that's just owning property and collecting rent (maybe there's another word for that?). Being a Landlord is a people business at the end of the day... if a Landlord doesn't deal with the people then are they really a Landlord? My opinion would be "no".

Wow! I am glad that this has generated so much response! 
Unfortunately, I cannot answer for all councils.  At the council I worked for we did try to see things from both points of view. That was WHY I did the NFOPP training. 
Angry Landlord:
Yes; the landlord is still exposed to overpayments from LHA.  However, if there is an overpayment, and the tenant continues to occupy the landlord should not be asked to pay it back.  Future LHA payments are reduced until the sum has been paid off and it is the tenant's responsibility to pay the shortfall together with any other shortfall they were already responsible for.  The reduction is based on the tenant's income.  If a large reduction would put the tenant into hardship, the minimum amount is charged per week.  At this point in time the minimum weekly deduction is £15.95 per week.  That means that whoever is paid the LHA gets (say)  £15.95 less each week and it is up to the tenant to pay that part so the landlord still gets his/her LHA to the amount awarded the tenant. Like I said earlier, the tenant is still responsible for any other shortfall that was due to make up the full rent, where the rent is larger than the LHA.   
Whenever I had a case like this I always had the landlord serve a S21 so that if the top up wasn't paid, they were in a very good position to get rid of the tenant.  The other incentive to the tenant is that if they lose their tenancy through their own actions (not paying the top up) they will not be eligible for statutory help and they will find it nigh on impossible to get another tenancy.  That often focuses their minds!     In our scheme any arrears at the end of the tenancy could be claimed out of the deposit.   And yes; the tenants were then handed the bill! 
PSL seems to be a new thing for Croydon?  Well it seems to me that if they have put it with high street agencies, they are really, really on a loser already. It is these poorly thought out ideas of councils that make things go wrong and then of course it is the councils who suffer because landlords won't deal with them again.   Of course the agents are not going to have the first idea about how to sort these problems, they will be doing the same old, same old things as they do with the purely private sector and as is documented well in this forum, this is often very bad even without the HB and council taken into account! 
I might have to think very carefully about what I do now.  Maybe there is a business case after all!

To reply to you Hippogriff
Not sure what you meant by  ." the angle of not intentionally providing advice regarding drawing-out a Section 21 process is well thought-out, it's a real problem for Landlords.."  Do you mean serving a S21 is difficult?  Sorry, really not sure what you meant. 
I did try to be as neutral as possible.  I am a landlady so I can see it from that point of view but I can also see it from the tenant's point of view - working as I did in the council specifically marrying public money (HB) with private enterprise (private landlords).  I  could to see what the problems were and how to get it sorted.
 
In connection with council tax, I think you are talking at crossed purposes.  The landlords will only be responsible for the full council tax if the property is empty or the people occupying have no legal right of tenure - like if they are temporary occupants or the property has been let as emergency accommodation via the council.  If the tenant has right of tenure, the council tax is paid by the tenant.  Exactly how much is owed will depend on the sort of benefit they are claiming, but that has nothing to do with the landlord. 
I am pleased that you said that sometimes those who claim HB are down and out.  However, from my twelve years experience working in this area, I can tell you that lots more aren't than are. 
Being a landlord takes on many hues.  Some like working IN their business and others like working ON their business.  That is just a matter of choice.

No, I mean the down-and-outs won't pay any Council Tax, whereas Landlords aren't going to be down-and-outs (obviously) so they will be paying Council Tax (their own). The proceeds from Council Tax is the Council's main source of funding so, therefore, it would be nice if Councils weren't perceived as always being against the Landlord in areas of potential disagreement... the area of eviction via Section 21 being the most notable, where most Councils will advise a Tenant to stay put until the day someone turns up to physically turf them out. That's what Landlords fear the most - a Tenant who has been served legal notice and has probably decided not to pay, at that point, and a Council who is advising them - "just stay there".

I know who pays Council Tax, I did not assert that the Landlord pays Council Tax for their Tenants. Serving a Section 21 is easy, it becomes harder when you have the Council telling the Tenant to stay beyond the expiry date.

Jewels, thanks for taking the time to post.
Much appreciated.

Morning all
Sorry for the slow reply...

I done what angry landlord suggested and sent jewels a PM.

i spoke with jewles and have decided to stick with PSL with the council.

They guarantee payment quartily in advance even if the property is empty, and they will hand the property back in the condition they take it on in.

Many thanks for your help and advice

I am on the verge of doing a PSL in Lewisham london.

Any idea what a one bed flat would get a month, I know it will be low.

@enfieldone did you end up doing this? Did it work out?

Does anyone have any good stories to share about PSL?

You are asking this about a post that goes back more than a decade. You may be a troll,  if not start a new thread.

Quote from: Riptide on January 10, 2016, 10:56:11 AMYou won't have to produce a one sided legal agreement that will have been drafted by lawyers that will grossly benefit one party to the agreement.  The council will do this and get you to sign it.

Below is who you can expect to be put in your house / flat and private sector IS, I repeat, targets the following to put in your property.

Target Group
· Alcohol/ drug problems
· Homeless families
· Single homeless
· Learning disabilities
· Mental health
· Offenders
· Physical or sensory disabilities
· Teenage parents
· Gypsies/ travellers
· People at risk of domestic violence
· Young people
· Older people
· HIV/ Aids

Not my idea of 'landlording'

I think someone was being politically correct and missed out

Asylum Seekers
Fake Asylum Seekers
Economic Migrants

for each of these you can multiply by the above list, the impact of this is that they have been briefed on what they are "entitled to" having had their fake or real asylum case fast tracked to get them out of hotels.  They also have an army of lawyers who love to jump in and find reasons not to evict them after they battle with a rent increase to LHA levels.

Strangely having been in a 4 star hotel room with a flat screen TV, free mobile phone for 3 years all found, they do not want to work and can't believe that they are now entitled to even more money from the UK state.

Regardless of which Gov let them in getting them out of your property (which they may damage) is harder than any eviction I have ever seen. I am sure there are worse and home grown at that, but the courts seem to give them the benefit of the doubt even if they do not follow procedures.

Nope, not a troll. Just a landlord on the edge. As I mentioned I've been digging deep to try to get this problem sorted.

But yeah this doesn't seem like an answer. Anyway, my local council said they're not leasing properties anymore