x
By using this website, you agree to our use of cookies to enhance your experience.
Graham Awards

TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Council offers £15,000 incentive if landlords take vulnerable tenants

A council wants buy to let landlords with one-bed flats or rooms in shared homes to help it find homes for vulnerable people - and it’s giving a £15,000 improvement grant as an incentive.

Participating landlords will also receive a package of other support measures from Cherwell council.

“In the past two months we have seen a sharp rise in the number of people needing emergency accommodation. With the help of local hotels we have done a good job at putting a roof over their heads” says a council spokesman.

Advertisement

“We are now planning for their longer-term futures and are ready to offer support and the opportunity to make improvements to properties for any landlords who are able to help us.” 

The landlords will need to offer affordable tenancies of six months or more to qualify for the benefits. 

For each property made available to the scheme, the council offers landlord grant funding contributions of up to £15,000. 

This non-repayable grant money can be put towards renovation and improvement works, including replacement bathrooms, HMO conversion, health and safety upgrades, and redecoration.

Other benefits include support organising viewings and signing tenancy agreements; ongoing help with the cost of annual gas safety checks; an optional government-approved model tenancy agreement; three months’ support from a council tenancy support officer; and six-monthly visits to assess property condition and discuss any issues.

Poll: Would this sort of incentive make you take a vulnerable tenants identified by a council?

PLACE YOUR VOTE BELOW

  • jeremy clarke

    Why would anyone want to help councils that spend our hard earned taxes in this way yet continue to bash private landlords?

  • icon
    • 27 May 2020 08:33 AM

    If it isn't possible to source tenants not reliant on LHA then time to sell that property.

    I'd rather my teeth pulled than have anything to do with disgusting Councils!

    Far rather keep a property empty until a non-DSS tenant could be sourced.

    Just as Councils despise LL so do do LL Councils.

  • icon

    A literal £15,000 cash in a briefcase would have me still unsure. If I get the lowest of the low tenant trash the place, I’ll need that money to put right…but then I have the hassle-factor. Genuinely, I was trying to figure out how much it would take for me to want to do this and I think £15k hard cash still isn’t enough.

    icon
    • 27 May 2020 08:57 AM

    About £45000 for me.
    That will just about cover a trashed property and a 2 year eviction process for rent defaulting.
    With no LL communication with the DWP simply impossible to have rent paid directly and even if possible still the risk of 'clawback'

    Nope still No DSS for me!

     
    icon

    My thoughts exactly and I don`t know if you also noticed that up to was also in the wording which means it is probably £150.

     
  • icon
    • 27 May 2020 09:06 AM

    Yep I honestly don't believe how much Councils are aware that they are despised by LL.
    It is of course a lot to do with Councils.
    But in a way they are also victims of the dysfunctional eviction and UC process.
    No sign of that changing any time soon.

    These Councils will perhaps have certain LL interested.
    The ones without traditional British names I suspect whose standards are always pretty poor and who are always being prosecuted.
    They and the Councils deserve eachother!

  • icon

    Rather than cash why do councils not just offer rent guarantee, in full and in perpetuity with no catches and damage guarantee. Let them take the risk.

    PossessionFriendUK PossessionFriend

    Probably because they know the tenants better than us landlords, as they will have known about their previous rental history. ?
    Council just want Private landlords to take a 'problem off their hands ' and if Sec 21 gets abolished, we should withdraw from it as much as is possible.
    I think Council's Emergency accommodation would quickly get over-run. Its happening now, hence the £15 k offer.

     
    icon
    • 27 May 2020 22:56 PM

    Because they know that feckless rent defaulting tenants caused over £9 billion of losses per year.
    Not all these losses will be caused by DSS tenants but a lot of them will.
    No sane Council would wish to be on the hook for their feckless clients.
    Let mug LL carry that particular burden.
    No surprise therefore that savvy LL won't entertain their feckless DSS tenants.

    They must believe LL are really that stupid!!

     
  • icon

    David, probably landlords would then be subject to more clawback and the council will have two choices to recover monies:
    Option A: Pursue the feckless tenants who have moved on to other pastures of
    Option B: Pursue the landlord.

    Rarely do they choose Option A.

  • icon

    So how the tide turns! After a decade of crap hurling at landlords, councils are now willing to Chuck money at landlords to house the very people who have, along with councils, are likely to sink a PRS business. No thank you.

  • PossessionFriendUK PossessionFriend

    Oh and the tide is nowhere near full in yet Hard Nut.
    As the saying - "what goes round, comes around"
    What the Govt have done to the PRS is surely gonna come round to bite their ass, and that day is approaching.
    Unfortunately, it will be tenants that suffer, whilst MHCLG try to blame Landlords ( although there'll come a time when they won't be able to bend that myth anymore )

icon

Please login to comment

MovePal MovePal MovePal
sign up