BBC One screened a programme, in the London and south east this evening about the pitfalls some landlords have fallen into.
Called Buy To Let Pitfalls, the show focused on landlords who entered the sector to provide a pension for themselves, but then ran into difficulties.
It featured a landlord, whose portfolio of housing benefit tenants caused him to scale back his investments following the need to instruct Landlord Action to handle two of the cases.
One tenant fell into arrears to the tune of £6000, because she failed to fill out the necessary housing benefit forms and did not inform the landlord.
The programme showed the state of the property on departure of the tenant – not good being an understatement.
Paul Shamplina, founder of Landlord Action, stated: “A system where landlords do not receive housing benefit directly from the council is simply not working”. Belvoir Stortford has already pre-empted these concerns and has specific wording written into our tenancy agreements.
It ensures that housing benefit payments are made direct to us, processed, then forwarded onto the landlord. It is a condition of the tenancy that this system is in place and we ensure all relevant paperwork is in order, prior to the tenancy being issued.
