Government quizzes six mortgage lenders about “no DSS” clauses

In October, NatWest's lending practices came under scrutiny over the case of a landlord who was refused a remortgage and threatened with revocation of the existing mortgage on the property because she was renting to a tenant in receipt of housing benefit.

NatWest’s review of its own policy is expected to report at the end of February.

The Committee is now asking NatWest and a series of other mortgage lenders including Kensington, Nationwide, Metro Bank, Co-op and Precise, whether their buy-to-let mortgage policy allow landlords to let to tenants receiving any benefits including housing benefit.

It is also asking the lenders whether they are satisfied any restrictions they place on buy-to-let landlords would not inadvertently amount to unlawful discrimination against benefit recipients.

Additionally, the Committee is writing to four property advertising platforms - Open Rent, Rightmove, Zoopla, and On the Market – about reports of the continued presence of “no DSS adverts” on their platforms.

The property agents themselves are being asked, of the total rental properties they have available in the UK right now, how many are available to recipients of any kind of benefit.

The Committee has written to the firms ahead of a one-off evidence hearing on DSS discrimination in Parliament on March 20.

A selection of each group - NatWest and Co-op Banks, Kensington Mortgages, Nationwide building society; Shepherd’s Bush Housing Group, Hunters and YourMove estate agents; OpenRent ad platform - have been invited to attend Parliament that day to give evidence on their policies. The Committee will also hear from a panel of benefit claimants and private landlords.

Research carried out in 2017 by the The Residential Landlords Association's mortgage consultants, 3mc, found that 66% of lenders representing approximately 90% of the buy-to-let market do not allow properties to be rented out to those in receipt of housing benefit.

The RLA believes such practices breach a number of principles within the FCA’s ‘Treating Customers Fairly’ agenda and also wants the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to review whether such practices breach equalities law.