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25% North East under 35-year-olds still live with Mum and Dad

Government welfare reforms could be one reason for the record rise in the numbers of under 35’s living with their parents – that’s the view of one property expert.

Official figures from the Office of National Statistics this week showed a quarter of 20 to 34-year-olds in the North East still live with Mum and Dad – with 3.3m young people across the UK in this position.

The figure has risen by 25% since 1996.

At the same time, a several high profile landlords have recently announced that they will no longer accept tenants who receive benefits - citing the government’s Universal Credit reforms as the reason for their decision.

Landlord Fergus Wilson – who rents out over 1000 homes in Essex - recently served eviction notices on every tenant claiming benefits with other property investors like Kevin Green – owner of 700 properties in Wales - threatening to follow suit.

Universal Credit - which combines six existing benefits into one monthly payment – will see housing benefit paid direct to tenants rather than landlords, with property owners fearing rising rent arrears will be the result.

One survey published this week showed only 18% of landlords now offer homes to benefits claimants - a third less than two years ago.

Ajay Jagota of North East lettings company KIS Lettings believes the issues could be connected.

The firm manages properties for 700 landlords from branches in Sunderland, South Shields, North Shields and Welwyn Garden City and was named Landlord of the Year at the 2013 Landlord and Letting Awards.

Ajay said: “I am broadly sympathetic and supportive of an awful lot of government housing policy, but it’s clear that welfare reforms are impacting on rented housing in a number of ways the government did not anticipate.

“Universal Credit is making more and more landlords close their doors to welfare tenants, which means less housing is available, which pushes rents up and leaves more and more young people with no choice but to boomerang back to Mum and Dad even when they’re almost 40.

“The fact that the rollout of Universal Credit has been so comprehensively botched from start to finish is only making that worse.

“Of course there’s are huge number of historic cultural and economic reasons for this rise, particularly falling wages and rising house prices caused by a lack of supply of homes – but the rental sector is an increasingly important part of Britain’s housing mix and all policy-makers must consider the impact on their decisions upon it.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ajay Jagota .