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Large housing association scraps ‘pointless’ affordability checks for new tenants
One of the UK’s largest housing associations has scrapped ‘affordability testing’ for prospective tenants, deeming the process “pointless bureaucracy”.
Sanctuary Group announced it was moving away from the process, which involves checking nominated households’ ability to pay the rent, in a blog written by chief executive Craig Moule.
The process has been controversial in the housing sector in recent years, with local authorities complaining that it makes it difficult to house homeless families on low or no incomes.
The Chartered Institute of Housing’s Rethinking Allocations report last month warned that the process was “failing those in greatest need”.
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Writing today, Mr Moule said: “Housing associations may have different origins but the thing that unites us is our social purpose. If we are not housing homeless people, who will?
“Pre-tenancy assessments can be sensible and help us work out how best we can support a tenant to sustain their tenancy, but they should never be about denying someone in need of a home.
“At Sanctuary, we used to carry out affordability checks but we quickly realised they were stressful for applicants and, as we never turned anyone down as a result, they were pointless bureaucracy for us, so we scrapped them.
“Getting rid of any kind of financial hoop-jumping for tenants has reduced our business risk. It has got rid of unnecessary administration, freeing up staff time to work with tenants proactively to start their tenancies on a positive footing.”
Affordability checks have become particularly strenuous since benefit cuts imposed by government meant that some tenants could not afford to cover the rent even on a social tenancy.
Before policies such as the overall household benefit cap and the bedroom tax, social tenants had their full rent covered through housing benefit.
In 2017, Inside Housing revealed that housing associations were becoming increasingly tough in affordability checks in response to benefit reductions.
One landlord said it subjected households to “stringent affordability checking” and if they were not able to demonstrate that they could afford the rent after their benefit was capped, then the allocation was “returned to the council as unviable”.
