Landlord leader: Charities are ‘scaremongering’ over £400 bills support scheme

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NRLA boss Ben Beadle has slammed recent claims that half a million renters could miss out on the Government’s £400 energy bill support scheme because their landlord will pocket the cash.

The ‘scaremongering claims’ have been made by several housing groups including Shelter, Generation Rent and Citizens Advice, all of whom are worried that landlords who offer ‘all inclusive’ deals usually within HMOs, will keep the payments rather than pass them on.

But the NRLA has responded furiously, saying that, given that the scheme is not even due to start until October, it is “irresponsible scaremongering on the part of some to be making baseless suggestions that landlords will not do the right thing by their tenants”.

Beadle’s comments are likely to be in response to Dan Wilson Craw, deputy director of campaign group Generation Rent, who has said: “A lot of landlords have already raised the rent to take account of higher energy bills and there’s no easy way for tenants to ask them to pass on the £400 grant if they don’t want to – threatening to move out is one approach but that is difficult when rent on a new property could be much higher.”

Tenant or landlord

But Beadle adds: “The support payments should help whoever is shouldering the costs of increased energy bills. That could be either a tenant or the landlord.

“Where rents include the cost of utilities, if they have been set to reflect recent and likely future energy price rises landlords should be passing the savings from the Government’s scheme onto their tenants.

“However, where all-inclusive rents do not reflect the higher costs of energy, or where rents have been frozen to support tenants, then it is the landlord who will be shouldering costs of higher energy bills.

“In cases such as this the system should recognise that it is the landlord that needs the support.

“One off pots of money like this cannot disguise the need for fundamental reform of the benefits system to support vulnerable tenants and landlords alike.

“This needs to include unfreezing housing benefit rates and giving tenants the choice, if they so wish, to have housing cost support paid directly to their landlord.”

Read more: Smart Meters - why landlords need to support them. 

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