UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi there
This is just a general question to you all:  How easy is it for you to sort out problems when your HB tenants' claim goes wrong?  Do you find your agent useful in getting it sorted out?  Is it a long winded process?   Do you find your local authority helpful?  Have you ever approached your local CAB for advice and if so, were they more on the tenant's side than yours? 
If you make it a blanket rule not to ever have HB tenants, why?  Would you reconsider if you had an agent who knew exactly how to get the problems sorted out?
I am really interested to learn the general consensus about this.
Julia

Oh my, what allot of questions.

In my experience it can be a nightmare, no one wants to help, Agents are useless, people on HB are generally not very helpfull in helping themselves...

BUT

sometimes we have a social obligation to help, and sometimes I might.

Sorry, its not an answer, do what you think is right, and try your best.

Councils and Agents however are 99% of the time completely useless.

If you're managing the property yourself it's best to take them to the council office and then you know it's getting sorted. A bit of a pain but at least you know it's done. A couple of hours of your time is worth it in my opinion. It portrays you as a caring landlord but really it's beneficial to you to get the money asap.

Hello MallyB and Boboff
That is really heartening to know.  I have been working for my local authority for seven years (and for five years prior to that for another authority) marrying private landlords to public money (ie: matching tenants on HB to private landlords) and I have been very successful at it. Currently I have 200+ tenants on my books in the scheme.   I am a landlord and have my NFOPP certificate for lettings and I was thinking about doing what I do for the authority on a commercial basis - helping landlords with HB claimants.  If your comments are anything to go by this could be an angle I could explore.   I know there are only two comments but do either of you think that might be something landlords would buy if I combined it with the usual letting agency stuff? 

Depends how much it was.

If I was using an Agent, this would be a good plus in there favor.

I would of course assume you were lying when you said it and wouldn't hold my breath, but none of us can deny that the HB market is potentially lucrative, and if you could possibly skim the top 2% of claimants into your little family of tenants, you could be onto a winner.

Personally I have a real issue with the help given to vulnerable adults, that the council may give social care to people, the NHS provide medication and support, and then the revenues department suddenly demand thousands for contributions to care from the same vulnerable adult, which is NOT good for there health, and very unprofessional IMO

Strangely enough we have only had one non-paying HB tenant in recent years and even then the money eventually came to us. As an agent though most of our landlords are not keen simply because of the difficulty HB tenants face in finding alternative accommodation if the landlord wants the property back. The scenario with HB tenants is that we serve notice, they try and fail to find somewhere to move to so approach the council for help and the council tells them that they do not have to leave until they are evicted. I am in SW London/Surrey so the problem may not be countrywide but HB allowances are not sufficient to cover the rent on anywhere half-decent.

Generally talking to anyone at the council is impossible but curiously enough I was called up last week by someone from Lambeth offering my firm up to £4k for every house or flat we let to Lambeth HB tenants (and I'm not even very close to Lambeth!) The fact they need to offer such a huge incentive perhaps speaks volumes about the type of tenant they are trying to palm off onto me.

DAVIDM
Do not trust Lamebth council one bit...whatsoever, at all...EVER!
They are bunch of total <%##€€\|!!!!!

Had a tenant from them, they stopped paying her benefits and then they helped her dispute (or try) my section 21 eviction order.
They even filled out the forms for her so she could stay without paying rent on grounds of nowhere else to go/hardship/kids etc.
Am not sure if they also filled out the Tenancy Deposit dispute form as well.
I didn't get a 4K sweetener which my have made me a little more stoical about the whole episode.

Have a damn good look at their GT&Cs.
I know you are the agent and so have a different angle but it's your customers the Landlords that will leave you if they get shafted.

Croydon council are no better.
Am somewhat heartened by Julia's post though...but sadly in SW London/Surrey the HB isn't enough and that's where the problem comes from.

Sadly I am now of the opinion that the overwhelming majority of agents are lower than whale sh!t on the bottom of the ocean floor and 99.999999999% useless (boboff is being generous) so even if Jewels you did provide an offer of an HB service unless you had a track record I would chuck your comments in the "of course they would say that to get my business" bucket.

But that's my opinion and I'm sure others would take up your offer.

Best of luck

Thanks for the heads up but we had already decided that there was too much of a conflict of interest as if we are taking £4k to put tenants into a property how could we possibly genuinely say to a landlord whether or not they would make good occupants. Way too tricky and possibly illegal as my terms of business don't unfortunately allow me to take sweeteners in exchange for turning a blind eye to a tenants inability to pay the rent - perhaps something for the 2016 edition......

Thanks for the feedback, Angry Landlord. I certainly do have a track record.  First five years with an inner London borough and then 7+ years where I am now.  I have been working on the private rent scheme and currently have 200+ on the books.  In all that time I have only had one person taken to court and that was because the tenant wouldn't move. It was the tenant's decision, not the council's advice.  I supported the landlord in taking her to court and made sure the HB went to him in the meantime.  The policy is to offer temporary accommodation to anyone with a valid S21 at the end of the notice period so she had somewhere to go.  When offering tenants to landlords, we support both the landlord and the tenant throughout their tenancy from ensuring that the potential tenant can afford the rent, (thorough credit check, HB assessment, scrutiny of bank account statements etc.) to drawing up the tenancy agreement to paying out on the claim should one be made.  Sorry to learn that other councils don't have the same pragmatic attitude. Like a couple of bad HB tenants give the rest a bad name, so it is with councils. 

DAVIDM ... Are you an agent with a conscience ?? Wow...my faith in human nature is possibly not irretrievably lost after all.

JEWELS your credentials sound impressive. 
If you are able to splash all that out on some marketing bumpf then perhaps you have a business case.  The bit I am struggling with though is where is the real upside for the landlord?  I assume the rent is not better through the HB route? So I can only assume you are opening up a safer access route to a larger potential tenant base and hence reduce the void periods...
What would be a bonus is if you had a relationship with the council to get tenants in as well...so as you are helping one tenant to "exit", you have another already being lined up, that would make Mr Landlord much happier.  I've had a void period down to three days in such a situation.
I assume your fee would be above average for such a service and the Landlords would need to justify that fee in their heads.

I like your thinking though and I hope you pull this off.

Best of luck

Hello again
I am not an agent - yet although I have the credentials to be!  NFOPP in Property Management qualified.  Like I say, I've been working for my local authority for the last seven + years.  The upside for the landlord would be knowing that they would have a very short void time (our authority ALWAYS  have tenants looking for accommodation) and knowing that when/if they do accept a HB tenant, they will be able to afford it as I will have done all the legwork before floating them by the landlord and that where possible (usually in our area) the HB will go direct to the landlord if requested by both tenant and landlord.
In my experience, as long as the property doesn't need any remedial works (and I shall be checking when the tenant puts in or gets notice) we can turn it around within a day.  I usually have people move out in the morning, and (assuming no remedial/cleaning works) someone moves in in the afternoon. 
Haven't thought about the exact figure of fees yet but I think the high street agents are outrageous!  They charge something in the region of 10%+. I was thinking I could do it for a bit cheaper than that as I don't intend having an office so to speak so very low overheads. I like to visit those who have applied so that I can gauge how they live and get a feel for how they will conduct the tenancy.  If they're a scruffy herbert living in squalor, the answer is no, not acceptable.  There are plenty of tenants to to choose from so I won't be accepting someone who may compromise my standing with the landlord. 
Obviously I will be doing some research on the fees situation before doing anything further but your response has strengthened my belief that this is a market that needs to be explored.

I've not experienced any problems with my HB tenants.....................................................................I haven't got/had any though.

That will be your answer then.   I haven't had any problems with my millions of pound lottery win either, but then I haven't had it yet....sadly!  lol 

I haven't had any problems with Erectile Dis-function....

Quote from: Jewels on September 22, 2015, 08:33:25 AM
How easy is it for you to sort out problems when your HB tenants' claim goes wrong?

Not easy at all.

When something goes wrong... no one cares. And the council are useless because they are under data protection restrictions, so you can't even find out if the tenants have received their benefits or if they've been revoked (assuming it's a rent arrears issue, which it generally always is).

Have whiled away many an hour reading the posts. Don't have a lot to add as the quality of comments (if not humour) is pretty high.

Yes, do NOT trust the Council - any Council - they are not on your side.

BUT, my local Council has outsourced to Capita and they are pretty good at responding to email, and at least tell you what the problem is; in my experience, almost invariably, that the Council has written but the tenant has not responded. If you treat them like children (the tenant, not the Council), this sometimes works. My most successful coursed of action, which I think has already been mentioned, was to book a hearing with the Council, pick them up, make sure they take the right documents, take notes and promise to rectify the situation . . . . . . well, you get the picture.

We have always managed our portfolio ourselves and will not take HB applicants for a new tenancy.  Occasionally, a tenant has a change of circumstances (usually redundancy) and then claims HB.  In those cases, we have always insisted in the tenant giving our local authority (Scottish) an authority for them to disclose information about the progress claim to us. 

We also insist on benefit being paid directly to us.  A couple of years ago, the LA brought in a ruling whereby HB could only be paid to tenants, as it hoped to encourage them to become "more financially responsible".  The initiative lasted precisely two months, as tenants were systematically pocketing what was intended to cover their rent.

Of the couple of hundred tenants we have had over the years, we have only ever taken on one at the request of this LA.  She is a complete nightmare that we cannot get rid of.  The flat is stinking, she has flooded her own flat and the one below and despite going through a valid eviction application process, the court is unwilling to evict, as the self same LA has declared that they won't re-house her and her two young brats as they believe that she has made herself intentionally homeless by not honouring the terms of her lease.