Landlord gives notice to 200 HB tenants

The 'King of BTL', ( not my title), aka landlord Fergus Wilson has sent out eviction notices to all his existing housing benefit tenants. A landlord  of a portfolio of nearly a thousand BTL properties in Kent he has joined the increasing trend away from renting to tenants on housing benefit, particularly in more affluent areas or areas with a restricted supply.

HB payments are simply not keeping pace with rents in the open market and landlords are increasingly finding that benefit tenants are both paying less rent and carrying a greater risk of default.

Fergus Wilson predicted that many of the 200 BTL tenants he has sent notices to would be replaced by working Eastern Europeans tenants, that he felt to be a better financial risk.

He is not alone, recent NLA data reported the number of landlords ready to rent to a HB tenants had fallen to just 1 out of five of us.

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