Searching for a new home can be stressful at the best of times, but for those in receipt of housing benefit it can sometimes feel like an impossible task. When Amanda Staples was served with a section 21 “no fault” eviction notice by her landlord, demanding she vacate the property because he wanted to sell, she was unprepared for the difficulties her family would face. In many regards, Staples would be considered the model tenant – she had an excellent record of paying rent on time, a guarantor and some savings, following the sale of a family home after her divorce. She was even willing to pay six to 12 months’ rent in advance. But despite this, she was refused a property that she could afford, in her preferred location, purely on the grounds that she received some of her income from state security benefits.
“I really felt like there was a total lack of understanding from the letting agent, even though I’d explained I was a really good tenant and that [moving out of the village] meant uprooting my children again, changing school, losing work and community links completely unnecessarily,” she says. “They didn’t want to listen and they had no interest in my employment, my income, my savings or situation.”
Staples’ experience is far from unique. A 2019 YouGov survey found that 54% of private renters in England who receive housing benefit (equating to 820,000 people) say they have been unable to rent a home because the property was advertised as “No DSS”. The knock-on effect of this discrimination is much less choice in the private rental market for those who need housing benefit, often leaving them with little option than to put up with properties that are in disrepair or unsuitable in other ways, or face the threat of homelessness.
In 2017, Rosie Keogh, a single mother in Birmingham, won £2,000 compensation from a letting agency with the help of Shelter’s strategic litigation team. The agent had refused to consider her as a tenant because she received housing benefit, despite her unblemished 11-year record as a private renter. Keogh told the BBC it made her feel like a second-class citizen: “I felt something had to be done to challenge it. I was motivated by anger at such inequitable practice … it’s women and women with children who are bearing the brunt of this because they need to work part time.” Later that year, a Shelter investigation found that five out of six letting agent brands had an outright ban on renters on housing benefit in at least one of their branches, and almost half (48%) had no properties available for housing benefit claimants at all.
With a chronic shortage of social housing in the UK, such policies leave families with few other options and Shelter has campaigned hard on the issue to accelerate change. The End DSS Discrimination campaign has had a number of significant successes, including convincing NatWest, The Co-Operative Bank and Metro Bank to change the terms of their buy-to-let mortgages, which had precluded landlords from renting to housing benefit tenants (all other major lenders followed suit). Nationwide Building Society, having changed its policy in 2013, also contacted any mortgage holders with a historic “No DSS” clause to reassure them that it would never be enforced. Further to this, Zoopla and Right Move agreed to ban the inclusion of “no DSS” conditions on their listings; and an update by the Competition and Markets Authority to the consumer protection law for lettings professionals now includes clarification on DSS discrimination.
Over the past 18 months, Shelter’s strategic litigation team has played a central role, working as part of the campaign team to coordinate legal challenges to the policies and practices of letting agents, banks, and landlords, as well as counsel affected tenants to take their complaint further if they are willing. “Part of the work of the strategic litigation team is to be horizon scanners,” says Jo Underwood, head of strategic litigation at Shelter. “To take a step back and monitor the common legal problems coming up in each Shelter office, liaise with our national campaigns and media teams … to tackle systemic failures in a more proactive and efficient way. Even a settlement out of court can be a step in the right direction because we can publicise that and show other landlords and agents they’re using unlawful practices and running the risk of a court case.”
Shelter’s legal team spans its 15 locations across England, works with the telephone and online advice services, and includes 40 solicitors and 30 legal advisers and paralegals. As part of its services, Shelter offers free legal advice via its Housing Possession Court Duty Scheme. Funded by the Legal Aid Agency, anyone facing eviction or a claim for possession can access legal advice or representation from a Shelter solicitor in courts across the country. There are four solicitors on the strategic litigation team itself. Rose Arnall, the solicitor embedded into the End DSS Discrimination campaign team, says often an appropriately worded letter can be enough to encourage agents to change their practices.
“We’ve had the Equality Act since 2010 so it does surprise me when we receive replies from landlords and agents and they don’t know how it applies to them, or they had no idea there’s such a thing as indirect discrimination,” she says. Indirect discrimination occurs when a practice is not, on the face of it, directly discriminatory, but puts people with a protected characteristic (such as gender or disability) at a particular disadvantage.
“The reality of how these practices impact people is that because women and those with disabilities are more likely to be in receipt of benefits than others, they are the ones who are more likely to be made homeless and not find a home as a result of this exclusion,” says Arnall. “Over the past two years I’ve had an increasing number of clients reveal to me how their housing problems are contributing to stress, anxiety and severe depression.”
Thousands tell Shelter they have been impacted by No DSS policies, but only some feel able to take on the hard task of enforcing their right to equal treatment through bringing a legal case.
Of those who do enter the courts, not all those who wish to report or challenge these practices have kept detailed records of what happened. “People don’t necessarily identify what they’ve experienced as a legal problem”, says Arnall of the cases they hear about.
Other challenges include accessing legal aid funding, and a requirement that any complaint must be filed with the court no more than six months after the discrimination occurred. The design of the Equality Act itself, which relies on the victims of discrimination being the ones to enforce it, makes bringing legal action against unscrupulous letting agents even more difficult. For those with complex needs, this can be yet another barrier to redress.
“It’s such a large task, you can see why the people who carry the cases forward tend to be incredibly determined,” Arnall says. “They’re not in it for compensation, they’re not in it for themselves – they just know firsthand the unnecessary unfairness and injustice of these practices, and they want to see the end to them.”
Represented by Arnall, Staples would eventually take legal action against the letting agent and landlord that refused to consider her as a tenant. The case totaled £13,000 in compensation, legal and court costs, and the agents issued a public apology. Since then, Staples and her family have been offered a secure social home in the same village and are now happily settled. “The rule of no DSS shows such ignorance,” she says. “[Being in receipt of benefits] could happen to anybody.”
Head to england.shelter.org.uk to find out how you can help end DSS discrimination
