propertytalk Live! - Ministers urged to support better landlords to avoid looming housing crisis

propertytalk Live! - Ministers urged to support better landlords to avoid looming housing crisis

Ministers have been urged to avoid a looming housing benefit crisis after new research revealed that welfare cuts may spark an exodus of better landlords from the housing benefit sector.

The new figures showed that almost nine in ten landlords (88.3%) would not reduce their rents to claimants, despite the raft of cuts to the housing benefit received by tenants announced by the government.

This flies in the face of government's key argument in favour of the changes - that landlords would reduce their rents in line with housing benefit cuts - and suggests that the high demand for homes in many areas will simply prompt landlords to instead let their properties to paying tenants.