Where do I find private landlords? Sheffield star is empty, there is nothing on the net...where are you all hiding?

Moon Maiden

In the Sheffield Forum Accommodation Available section?
Seriously though Moon, is there no-one there that can help?

I keep looking Tony - it seems the landlords are happy to cater for students but not anyone else who needs a house :(

I have also posted two threads asking for 2/3 bed houses in HIllsborough and surrounding and now Stocksbridge and surrounding area.

Barnsley is looking like my only option of finding a house and that stinks.

Moon Maiden

Have you tried looking in newsagents or ad boards in supermarkets etc in the areas you're interested in.

How about asking the estate agents in the area to keep you posted on any prospective buyers who are buying with the intention to rent?

if anyone has any tips let me know!1

Try Norrow Estates, it is a board that pops up around Crookes quite regularly. I know there are some owned by a company called Abbeydale something, think they are a builders.

There's a great big house at the Abbeydale end of Carterknowle Rd with a House to Let sign in the window...

Sorry if this is too obvious, but have you been round Estate Agents?

They'll probably be 6 month minimum contract length and do reference checks on you and there'll be a signing on fee - so dunno if any of that is a problem?

I don't think they'll be too fussed about your status though if you can pay the rent.

i'm having the same problem. i'm working but don't have a great credit file. I have tried getting a place through Mike Jolly estate agents with my ex. we paid 140 quid to be checked and because i didn't reach their standards we couldn't have the flat and the fee is always non refundable.

I can provide employers refs (am permanent and earn enough money) bank statements and a landlords reference from my current place.

I also think that most people doing buy to let these days are using estate agents to make the arrangements.

I agree with Moon Maiden its really difficult to find private rents

Hi

thanks for all your suggestions and pm's on this.

I have checked the estate agents yes but I am really looking for proper private landlords because of credit referencing and stupid rents that housing benefit won't pay.

Moon Maiden

How much housing benfit will the council pay, is it 40 quid and you pay the rest?

A friend of mine has just relocated to Sheffield and moved in to a privately owned 3 bed property.

Shes a single mum with 2 kids ages 15 and 7 and she works about 16 hours a week.

Her rent is £625 P.C.M. and her housing benefit is going to pay £444.50 towards her rent, leaving her £180.50 left to pay.

I personally think this is fantastic and it has inspired me to definetly go through with seeking out a private property myself.

Regards

Joanne

Originally posted by Moon Maiden
Hi

thanks for all your suggestions and pm's on this.

I have checked the estate agents yes but I am really looking for proper private landlords because of credit referencing and stupid rents that housing benefit won't pay.

Moon Maiden
Forgive me if Ive misread one or two of your quotes Moon but I understood you to be involved in a small business? So not sure about the housing benefits thing that you quoted. Have possibility of a 3 bedroom property but this is strictly non smoking and non DSS (due to beurocratic nightmares in the past)

Dragon

Do people on DSS, Incapacity Beneift get less Housing Benefit that people who have small businesses?:confused:

that's a very interesting question, whitekat!

I am so P'd off seeing all the adverts in the star/ yeller etc, saying "No dss"

why the hell can't the owners rent to DSS tenants?

for goodness sakes, if the tenant is on benefits, and signs the bit on their claim form to permit the council to pay their rent to the landlord directly, surely to goodness, the landlord is more guaranteed of getting the money for the rent than someone working, even.

I tried to get a wheelchair- adapted bungalow, that was offered privately through the newspaper, but they turned me down as I was on benefits.

I was disappointed as I was in an unsuitable council house, (I could not get my wheelchair into the property) and was desperate to get something suitable... the council would not give me medical priority, and I could not get the adaptations that I needed. It was a nightmare. Talk about catch-22!

It irritates me so much!

Talk

Originally posted by Plain Talker
that's a very interesting question, whitekat!

I am so P'd off seeing all the adverts in the star/ yeller etc, saying "No dss"

why the hell can't the owners rent to DSS tenants?

for goodness sakes, if the tenant is on benefits, and signs the bit on their claim form to permit the council to pay their rent to the landlord directly, surely to goodness, the landlord is more guaranteed of getting the money for the rent than someone working, even.

I tried to get a wheelchair- adapted bungalow, that was offered privately through the newspaper, but they turned me down as I was on benefits.

I was disappointed as I was in an unsuitable council house, (I could not get my wheelchair into the property) and was desperate to get something suitable... the council would not give me medical priority, and I could not get the adaptations that I needed. It was a nightmare. Talk about catch-22!

It irritates me so much!

Talk

It's probably not so much the rent that the landlords are worried about in this instance PT.

While it obviously doesn't apply to you and plenty of others, many DSS tenants have a bad reputation when it comes to cleanliness, noise, drugs, domestics etc.

Harsh though this may sound, if you had a flat/house to rent, you wouldn't voluntarily choose your tenants from the bottom of the socio-economic pool, would you?

i was told by a private landlord
if you are in receipt of mobilty benefits etc
you are not categorised as DSS
you are pensioned ( irrespective of age)
hoping this might help someone in the future

Many years ago one used to see 'no blacks' 'no children' 'no Irish' in rental advertisements. 'No DSS' is the latest trend in discrimination, its quite simple.;)

Originally posted by whitekat
Many years ago one used to see 'no blacks' 'no children' 'no Irish' in rental advertisements. 'No DSS' is the latest trend in discrimination, its quite simple.;)


Not quite that simple. People can't help the colour of their skin, their age or their nationality. Quite often though the DSS claimants are serial single parents, druggies, problem families, asylum seekers etc. Sometimes a combination of all four.

Many of these people are career DSS claimants who are able to make more money on the social than they would in a job.

Discrimination is the simplist thing I can think of, you either do it or you don,t how ever you dress it up in fancy theories. Its a personal choise like all others in life

. After all its a 'free' country, you can think do and say what you like, apparently!:thumbsup;)

Can I just ask mojo what a serial single parent is?

Moon

I guess it means someone who is willing to spread themselves around abit with plenty of one night stands and resulting in offsprings. :D

Originally posted by Moon Maiden
Can I just ask mojo what a serial single parent is?

Moon

A good example would be a woman with, say, 3 kids. All of them have different fathers, but there is no husband around.

Originally posted by mojoworking
Not quite that simple. People can't help the colour of their skin, their age or their nationality. Quite often though the DSS claimants are serial single parents, druggies, problem families, asylum seekers etc. Sometimes a combination of all four.

Many of these people are career DSS claimants who are able to make more money on the social than they would in a job.

I resent the implication that, as someone who had been too ill to work, and who had to rely on sickness benefits for 11 long, hard years, I was a sponger or some kind of bottom-feeding mouth breather.

I wanted to work, I was just not well enough to do so.

Asylum seekers, incidentally, are forbidden to work in their countrry of refuge. therefore they are forced to rely on benefits to survive. (which has been gone into, in some depth in another thread)

if you have very young kiddies, then, again it is not easy to work, unless you have childcare in place, which often costs as much as you earn, on minimum wage.... On top of the problems of finding and affording child care, there's the problem of, if you kiddies are school age, finding work that permits you to work hours that will fit round school-times, permitting you to drop off and collect your child(ren) from school. (as well as the fun of finding childcare to cover school holidays)

anyway, this is not on the topic of "benefit claimants are chavs/scum/ (insert insulting adjective of your choice) thnor is it the "wrongs and rights of asylum seeking"... this is on the topic of finding housing, so, back on topic....

All folk like me and moonmaiden are/were looking for, is a property, fit to live in, that we can can make "home". All we wnt /ed is to be able to live, securely, warm, and dry with our families. I paid through the nose, out of my benefit, for this supposed Credit-check thing, from the private landlord I applied to. the agent must have known that we'd automatically be turned down, as benefit claimants, but the swine took out money anyways. he must have been laughing up his sleeve at our naivete!!! (well, we were innocents, trusting, we weren't well versed in the tricks and scams of some scurrilous private landlords.)

There are tenancy agreements, drawn up and signed between a tenant and their landlord. The tenant signs an undertaking, to say that they will not engage in criminal behaviours or anti socail behavoiurs, and that they willl treat the property reasonably, and not "wreck it".

The person who does not adhere to the tenancy agreements clauses, and makes exessive noise, who engages in certain antisocial and criminal behaviours does not deserve to keep their tenancy.

but they are a minority, and the other, majority of folk who are decent, should be able to rent the private properties and not be penalised for a minorities' activities.

PT

Originally posted by mojoworking
A good example would be a woman with, say, 3 kids. All of them have different fathers, but there is no husband around.

So, marriages/ relationships do not fail then?

Women do not get involved with blokes, and settle down with them, only to find that the guy is (or becomes) violent/ drunkard/druggie or abusive?

By God, It's happened to me and to a few of my friends.

I, personally, fled 2 relationships because of domestic violence, and I have a friend who married a bloke who became hooked on hard-drugs, and became violent to her and her children, Are you suggesting that the woman should remain in that situation, and risk her or the children being injured or killed by this idiot?

No, she should get the hell away from him, and protect herself and her kids.

I got out of my violent relationships with my life.... Some folk have not been so lucky.

(And btw, I know that i have used the Man-violent-towards-the-woman scenario, but I do acknowlege that the violence can, albeit more rarely, happen the other way round)

This all doesnt alter the facts, that a private landlord, piad directly from the Housing benefit department, is more assured of getting the rent-money from a tenant, than from someone working and paying their own rent. I would have thought that they would have jumped at the chance of a regular, assured payment of rent monies...

O course, this all goes by-the-board, if the landlord is on some kind of fiddle, and is getting the rent paid by a (working) tenant, and does not declare the income, which he'd be forced to do if it went "through the books" via housing benefit payments. S/he'd have to declare it, then, wouldn't he? Maybe that is why the landlords dont want HB claimant tenants.........

PT

The theoretical single woman must have had the misfortune to have met 3 irresponsible males as no single woman impregnates herself.

The single mum is the one behaving responsibly and not abdoning her children, unlike the 3 irresponsible males. Is it logic to discrimate the responsible party



;) :confused:

Originally posted by mojoworking
A good example would be a woman with, say, 3 kids. All of them have different fathers, but there is no husband around.

I this is where sterotypes come into dangerous areas. Because people will automatically assume that a woman with multiple children with different fathers is a lower class of woman.

My two children have different fathers but I split with my first partner because of a death of our child which is just one of many reasons why a couple can no longer continue to work out their differences. I am all for working at a relationship but it takes two.

I may also point out that Mojo said single parents - not single mothers - I do know there are few single fathers who are labelled in the same way a single mother is - they face their own difficulties.

Moon Maiden

Originally posted by Plain Talker
I tried to get a wheelchair- adapted bungalow, that was offered privately through the newspaper, but they turned me down as I was on benefits.


Would the Disability Discrimination Act help someone in a similar situation today?

I doubt it Andy - residents of private landlords have less rights than council tenants, so it would follow that a private landlord has more right to refuse who he likes regardless of why.

Moon

Originally posted by Moon Maiden
I this is where sterotypes come into dangerous areas. Because people will automatically assume that a woman with multiple children with different fathers is a lower class of woman.

My two children have different fathers but I split with my first partner because of a death of our child which is just one of many reasons why a couple can no longer continue to work out their differences. I am all for working at a relationship but it takes two.

I may also point out that Mojo said single parents - not single mothers - I do know there are few single fathers who are labelled in the same way a single mother is - they face their own difficulties.

Moon Maiden

I was speaking hypothetically, don't forget. Ideally, every case should be judged on its merits, but landlords don't have that luxury, hence the "No DSS" rider.

I was also at pains to exclude those on disability pensions etc from the admittedly wide-reaching generalisations I was making.

No I understand Mojo - I was just pointing out how difficult and frustrating it can get for those that don't necesserily come under the stereotype ;)

Moon

Originally posted by Moon Maiden
so it would follow that a private landlord has more right to refuse who he likes regardless of why.


Having had a look, I believe that any landlord who refuses accomodation to a disabled person on the basis that they are recieving DSS payments would be breaking the law.

In essence, they are offering less favourable terms to someone due to disablilty. This is now unlawful. The fact that a disabled person is recieving DSS is not, on its own, sufficient grounds to refuse to rent them a property. They could, of course, refuse on the basis that you couldn't supply references, or you had pets, or you smoked, or anything else so long as the same criteria would apply to an able bodied person.

In financial services, the guidelines we have say that we cannot refuse to lend money to a disabled person simply because they don't have a job. We can refuse a loan where the person's income would not cover the repayments, or because they've had bad debts in the past, but simply to refuse facilities because someone was recieving disability related benefits would be unlawful.

Disclaimer: The above is based on my understanding of the law and my reading of the relevent part of the DDA. However you should not take action based on this information without seeking professional advice from a solicitor or other qualified person.

If I was to let my house out I would like to (and believe I would) have the right to decide on any grounds I like whether to let it out or not, and I'd be very surprised if someone told me otherwise.

I may not be sensible to do that on certain grounds because I could be turning away a perfectly reasonable tennant.

If I was a local authority or such like, yes I'm sure I could be in trouble for discriminating on grounds of disability but not as a private individual.

From my experience of the DSS thing (which is 4 yrs out of date mind), I believe the reason a lot of landlords are cagey about doleys is that it takes forever for the council to get their finger out and actually commence payment.

Back when I was on the andy cole it was only the generosity of my parents that kept me in the gaff i was in. It took the council FIVE MONTHS from when I moved in to actually get the landlord some cash. They did pay the arrears (in case anyone has misunderstood) just took em forever to start the bureaucratic ball rolling.

And from talking to peeps in similiar situations at the time I wasn't the only one. Is it any wonder landlords don't want this?

Even when I got a job I was still recieving cheques for 8 weeks after I'd told em I was working.

That. my friends, is I think why this "No DSS" tihng has sprung up. Any landlord with half a brain knows the "they're all chavs" thing is rubbish but when you are looking at potentially 3-5 months with no income on that house, well it don't matter how nice the tenant is does it? You've presumably got bills to pay with that cash and can't wait months to see it, even if it does all turn up eventually.

Originally posted by Saifa
From my experience of the DSS thing (which is 4 yrs out of date mind), I believe the reason a lot of landlords are cagey about doleys is that it takes forever for the council to get their finger out and actually commence payment.

Back when I was on the andy cole it was only the generosity of my parents that kept me in the gaff i was in. It took the council FIVE MONTHS from when I moved in to actually get the landlord some cash. They did pay the arrears (in case anyone has misunderstood) just took em forever to start the bureaucratic ball rolling.

And from talking to peeps in similiar situations at the time I wasn't the only one. Is it any wonder landlords don't want this?

Even when I got a job I was still recieving cheques for 8 weeks after I'd told em I was working.

That. my friends, is I think why this "No DSS" tihng has sprung up. Any landlord with half a brain knows the "they're all chavs" thing is rubbish but when you are looking at potentially 3-5 months with no income on that house, well it don't matter how nice the tenant is does it? You've presumably got bills to pay with that cash and can't wait months to see it, even if it does all turn up eventually.

only five months? my goodness! they must have been on a speed-up, tather than the usual go-slow.. ( ;) ) chuckles to herself, wryly.

no, seriously, that is horrendous, saifa, they are total plonkers!

I have been claiming HB for 11 years, and even with HB renewals, (which are supposed to be straightforward), I have never yet had a claim processed by csl/ liberata/ (orwhatever the wallies are calling themselves this week) without problems. they have always managed to foul something up within my claim.

my favourite was the time my housing benefit was stopped, because I "hadn't renewed my claim".

why hadn't I renewed my claim?

"because you haven't sent your form back"

what form?

"the one we sent you"

when did you send it to me?

"OH! erm... while we were on the 'Shut-down' fortnight"

I have not recieved any form.... do you mean that fortnight when you don't send any mail out because you are shut-down?

"OOps, we won't have sent the form out then, will we...? (sheepish expression!)"

so the form you are screaming about, that I haven't sent back to you, has never actiually been sent out in the first place?

"erm, yes!"

Well that explains why I havent sent back a form to you which you never sent out in the first place, then, doesn't it?

I'm sure that "being brain-dead" is part of the job description, sometimes, for that HB section at the council....

PT