As arguments over the Housing Benefit Cap rumble on, two landlords associations have demanded a statement retraction from the Welfare Reform Minister, Lord Freud.
The argument revolves around the much discussed changes to Local Housing Allowance which will see payments capped at £400 a week. Lord Freud said that the cap will mean some rents should come down as “some unscrupulous landlords are charging benefit claimants over the odds to make a quick buck at the expense of the taxpayer.”
Both the British Property Foundation (BPF) and the Residential Landlords Association (RLA), organisations that represent landlords, who in most cases have landlord insurance cover, are up in arms about the statement and have asked the Lord to retract it. They say the research conducted by the Department of Works and Pensions shows that nearly 70% of the housing bill is down to new claimants who lost their jobs in the recession and only a small proportion of the bill is directly caused by claimants receiving more money to pay their rents.
Ian Fletcher, from the BPF, said “Landlords and their representative’s support benefit reform, but are not prepared to take the rap for the government’s unpopular policies. Constant spinning and fiddling with the statistics just embarrasses the DWP and has no place in the Coalition’s politics. Rather than distorting the findings of the [DWP] report, the department should be focusing its energies on how it can work with the sector to keep people in their homes.”
The argument didn’t impress Lord Freud who insisted that some landlords are fleecing the taxpayer saying “You only have to look at the property websites to see that rents in the private sector have been falling. But for housing benefit tenants the rents continue to rise. We must end this practice of landlords inflating their prices when the government is paying the bill – in future landlords will need to reduce their rents or risk their homes becoming empty.”