Renting when you claim benefits

“No DSS” is one of the most searched phrases in British renting, which tells you how many people are still running into it. It is worth knowing where the law now stands, because a lot of people are turned away by a policy that a court has held to be unlawful.

What the courts decided

In July 2020, at York County Court, District Judge Victoria Elizabeth Mark held that rejecting a tenancy application because the applicant receives housing benefit was unlawful indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex and disability, contrary to the Equality Act 2010. The case was brought by a single mother of two with support from Shelter’s strategic litigation team.

The reasoning was that a blanket ban does not fall evenly. Substantially more women than men in the private rented sector claim housing benefit, and the same pattern holds when comparing disabled and non disabled tenants. A rule that looks neutral on its face therefore lands disproportionately on groups the Equality Act protects.

In September 2020 a second case, at Birmingham County Court, followed the same reasoning in respect of a disabled father, and reached the same result.

What that means in practice

A blanket refusal, an advert saying “no DSS”, or an instruction not to put forward anybody on benefits, is very difficult to defend. That applies to letting agents as well as landlords.

What it does not mean is that a landlord has to accept every applicant. Affordability and referencing checks are still legitimate, and they are applied to everybody. The distinction the courts drew is between assessing a person and refusing a category.

If you meet a blanket refusal

• Get it in writing if you can. An email or a message saying the landlord does not take housing benefit is worth keeping. So is a screenshot of an advert.
• Ask for the actual criteria. What income do they need to see? What referencing do they use? Would a guarantor change the answer? Reasonable questions, and the answers move the conversation from category to person.
• Say that you know where the law sits. Calmly. A great many refusals are habit rather than policy, and some agencies simply have not updated what they were told years ago.
• Get advice. Shelter and Citizens Advice both deal with this regularly and both are free. Your local council may also have a team that helps people secure private tenancies.

What helps an application

None of this is a requirement and none of it should be necessary, but in a competitive market these are the things that most often turn a maybe into a yes:

• A guarantor, if you have somebody who can be one
• References from a previous landlord, if you have rented before
• Evidence of consistent payment, from wherever your income comes
• Bank statements showing that the rent is affordable alongside everything else

For landlords and agents reading this

The practical position is straightforward. Assess every applicant on affordability and references, apply the same test to everybody, write the criteria down, and do not carry a category rule. That is both the lawful approach and, on the evidence of every letting agent who has moved to it, a perfectly workable one.

Where to check

Shelter publishes free guidance on housing benefit discrimination and updates it as the law develops. Citizens Advice covers the same ground. Both are better sources than any letting agency, including this one, because neither has anything to sell you.