Serco is offering landlords guaranteed rent for five years if they agree to house asylum seekers - James Manning
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Landlords have said Labour’s drive to house asylum seekers in their properties is “immoral”.
Serco, a private contractor working for the Home Office, is offering landlords guaranteed rent for five years if they agree to house asylum seekers.
It comes as taxpayers are spending billions of pounds on hotels for migrants following a surge in Channel crossings.
Serco is already responsible for 30,000 asylum seekers in 7,000 properties and invited property owners to an exclusive event at a four-star hotel in the Malvern Hills next month, which has now been cancelled.
But landlords have told Telegraph Money that they thought the offer was “immoral” and that they would struggle to rent to tenants they did not know or could not vet themselves.
Tim Prourban, 62, has been a landlord for more than 20 years and has four rental properties. He said: “It’s just immoral. It doesn’t sit well with me. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.
“On a personal level, I wouldn’t want to hand it over to people who basically don’t deserve it, over and above people who work, pay into the economy.”
The landlord, who lives in Stratford-upon-Avon, West Midlands, said that he had had bad experiences with migrant tenants in the past. He said: “They took up the lawn and took it with them, they left excrement on the walls. They broke two double-glazed windows. It was vandalism.”
Mr Prourban said that he had installed a £6,000 bathroom before letting a property to a migrant tenant, who smashed the toilet and basin. The agency he was using had promised to cover repairs, but he said: “They put the cheapest stuff in there. You end up with non-matching furniture.”
Landlord profits have dwindled in recent years with the average income at £16,700 – down 10.8pc since 2018 in real terms. Government policies, including tax increases, have also made the occupation increasingly less worthwhile for many.
Amanda Johnson-Clarke, 58, has been a landlord for about seven years and has approximately 40 properties in Margate, Kent and Hertfordshire, but said she was not interesting in housing migrants.
She said: “It’s completely morally irresponsible. It’s sending a message out to anyone thinking of making a very dangerous journey across the water that, if you get here, we’re going to give you a house for five years. It’s completely, utterly the wrong message.”
Ms Johnson-Clarke said that she would be worried about other owners in the block of flats in Margate in which she has properties if she allowed tenants she did not know or vet to move in.
She said: “They would be horrified if I rented out to illegal immigrants who could be criminals. I’d rather have a property empty for a month than have the wrong person in it. We regularly turn down people.”
She said: “[It] will attract all the wrong landlords, the rogue landlords, which the Government has been trying to clamp down on for years.
“Those are the only ones that I can see that would come forward and be desperate to do this to make a quick buck, because they’ve basically turned around and said they’re going to offer them higher-than-average rents to do it.”
Greg Tsuman, managing director of lettings at Martyn Gerrard Estate Agents and former president of ARLA Propertymark, said: “Landlords have been feeling the pinch since the Government has been generating a challenging environment due to taxation and legislative changes.
“While the financial terms can appear attractive, as always the devil is in the detail. We have recently become aware of certain contracts offered by providers which can be extremely one sided, so it is more important than ever to fully understand each parties’ legal rights and obligations before signing any agreement.”
Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), said: “The Home Office’s use of private landlords highlights the growing shortage of available homes and the lack of consistency between government departments.
“Whilst half of Whitehall is scrabbling to hit housing targets and find accommodation for potentially homeless households, the other half seems hell-bent on devising ways to dissuade investment in homes.”
Housing asylum seekers in private accommodation is cheaper than using hotels – costing as little as £14 a night, compared with £145. The scheme was introduced more than a decade ago by the previous Conservative government.
There were 38,000 asylum seekers in hotels as at December last year, costing £5.5m a day and up from 29,585 last June before the election, the latest Home Office data showed.
Contractors are responsible for housing 65,700 asylum seekers – the highest number in a decade – and nearly double the 31,000 in “dispersal accommodation” in 2014.
A Home Office spokesman said: “These arrangements with the private rented sector have been in place for years, including under the previous government. We have a statutory duty to support destitute asylum seekers who will not be able to pay for fees such as utilities and council tax.
“We are restoring order to the asylum system and cutting costs to taxpayers by reducing the number of people we are required to accommodate through a rapid increase in asylum decision-making and the removal of more than 24,000 people with no right to be in the UK.”
The Home Office and Serco were contacted for further comment.
