This petition was submitted during the 2017-2019 parliament

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Petition Stop providers of Buy to Let mortgages discriminating against benefits claimants

The housing crisis in the UK is being exacerbated by the main lenders for Buy to Let mortgages, including TSB, Santander, Virgin and NatWest, stating that landlords must not let their properties to housing benefit claimants. We call on the government to make this discriminatory practice illegal.

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More than 120,000 children are living in temporary homes according to the public accounts committee (01/05/2017 The Times)

The number of tenants in the private sector receiving state help has risen by 50 per cent to almost 1.5 million since the financial crisis as wages stagnate and rents rise (01/05/2017

The combination of economic pressures means more and more vulnerable tenants are being pushed out of the private rented sector (Sean Tompkins, Chief Executive of Rics bbc.co.uk 09/07/2017)

This petition is closed This petition ran for 6 months

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MPs want to hear your views on benefits and renting

A group of MPs who form the Work and Pensions Committee are looking at difficulties faced by benefit claimants in finding suitable housing in the private rented sector. The Committee is looking into ‘no DSS’ policies which restrict landlords from renting to people who are claiming benefits.

To help them with their inquiry, the MPs on the Committee would like to hear from people who have experienced problems finding private rental properties because they are or were in receipt of benefits.

You can tell the Committee about your experience by completing a short survey here: https://twitter.com/CommonsWorkPen/status/1102956785940525056

The survey is expected to be open for responses until 20 March. This may be moved back if the Committee wishes to receive more responses.

We know that what you say might contain sensitive personal information, so the Committee may not publish what you say in full. Instead, the Committee will summarise the experiences of all those they hear from, which will include the key themes and use anonymised quotes as examples of what the Committee has heard. These will be used in the final output of the inquiry (which could be a report for example) which will be later be decided by the Committee.

You can find more information on the ‘no DSS’: discrimination against benefit claimants in the housing sector inquiry here:

https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/inquiries/parliament-2017/inquiry18/