A large family versus private landlords

A couple on benefits are being pursued by three private landlords for unpaid rent.

Amanda and Derek Finnigan, both 35, have seven children.  In recent years they have lived in a four-bedroom house (seven children share three bedrooms), a seven-bedroom house (seven children share six bedrooms), and a five-bedroom bungalow (seven children share four bedrooms).

I will not pretend to know the truth of the matter, but the Finnigans claim that at least one of their former landlords failed to carry out maintenance.  This I fear is a common failing of private landlords.

The fourth episode of Benefits Street shows the interior of the house formerly occupied by the man known as Fungi.  (He has since left the street.)  The house was in a dreadful state of disrepair.

Fungi was in receipt of housing benefit, but his landlord was the true beneficiary of that money.  In other words, the landlord is a huge benefit scrounger, who laps up taxpayer’s money while forcing his tenant to live in misery.

It is possible that Fungi’s landlord was Paul Nischal, who according to The Daily Mail owns houses on James Turner Street.  They quote one of his tenants (who works in a factory) as saying that his house is so damp that a cupboard fell off the kitchen wall, and so cold that his children have to go to bed fully dressed.

The Finnigans have predictably attracted a lot of bile from people who object to families raising children on benefits.  A common argument is that people should not have children unless they can afford to support them, but it is fair to say that according to that logic almost no one outside of the royal family should ever have children.  After all, a family who earn a large salary today might be living on benefits tomorrow.   Prosperity is seldom carved in stone.

Britain needs children.  Any society does.  Children today provide the work force of tomorrow.  Do we really want people not to have children?  Generally speaking, making nasty remarks about families on benefits is akin to stupidity.

An interesting feature of the Finnigans’ case is that it appears that their housing benefit was sometimes paid to them rather than directly to their landlord.  The government is currently in the process of bringing in a new benefits system known as Universal Credit.  So far as I can make out, one aspect of Universal Credit is that housing benefits will normally, perhaps invariably, be paid to the benefit claimant rather than to the landlord.

Maybe the government should amend the rules to ensure that housing benefit can still be paid directly to the landlord - but only if the landlord actually maintains the property.

Related previous posts include: 

Two hundred evictions

Is it legal to hate private landlords?

A rent arrears crisis in London