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Furnishing the future

Keeping curtains and carpets in homes at the time of re-letting has saved Orbit tenants in a pilot scheme an estimated £10,000. Kate Youde finds out what other housing providers can learn from this approach

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Furnishing the future

When Danielle Hunt moved into her new home in Wellesbourne, near Stratford-upon-Avon, it had something that many social lets don’t: carpet. Ms Hunt is one of 22 tenants to benefit from a pilot by Orbit to leave carpets and curtains in homes at the time of re-letting, rather than stripping them out in line with its usual policy (see box: Safer for children).

The scheme is inspired by the 39,000-home association’s Happy, Healthy Starts child poverty campaign, which aims to find practical steps landlords can take to improve young people’s prospects. Orbit found a quarter of children living in the communities it serves are growing up in poverty, while families with children are four times more likely to be in rent arrears.


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Since launching in January, the pilot has saved the 22 tenants an estimated £10,000. Now, Orbit is reviewing whether it can roll the idea out further across the organisation. But what can others learn from its approach?

Keeping a record

Under the pilot, if the property services team deems floor and window coverings to be in good condition in a void in Stratford-upon-Avon, they send photos to the housing team so they can ask incoming tenants whether they would like them. If they would – and most do – the association tells the contractor to keep them when it clears the property, has them professionally cleaned and gets the incoming tenant to sign a form gifting them the items.

This form, drafted following legal advice, is designed to protect Orbit against a claim for personal injury. “We need to make sure we mitigate these risks and ensure we have documented exactly what condition tenants’ items are in at the moment of handover,” says Sophie FitzHugh, interim head of community investment at Orbit, which removes curtains and carpets where there is risk of previous drug use or infestation.

Aside from the expense, some landlords give concerns over legal responsibility and health and safety as “excuses” for not providing carpets, says Helen Campbell, campaigns officer at End Furniture Poverty, the campaigning arm of social business FRC Group, which provides furniture to people in need. But although there is no particular legal reason for social landlords not to provide carpets and curtains, housing lawyer Giles Peaker can see why they are cautious.

“Unlike private lets, social lets are likely to be long term,” says Mr Peaker, partner at Anthony Gold Solicitors. “If a landlord installs fittings such as carpet and curtains there is a risk they will be responsible for them in the future, unless they are expressly excluded in the tenancy agreement in the way that kitchen units and internal doors usually are.

“We want to make sure people have everything in place to sustain a tenancy for as long as possible.”

“There is also a potential risk of liability for injury from defective installation, or later defects if the landlord continues to be responsible.” Hence Orbit asking tenants to sign a form.

Its scheme, which is cost neutral to the organisation, has enabled some tenants to move in more quickly because there are carpets. “What we want to do is to make sure people have everything in place to enable them to live a happy and healthy life in a property and sustain a tenancy for as long as possible,” says Ms FitzHugh, who adds that Orbit is also exploring models for furnished tenancies and furniture recycling. “It’s often things like not having some of these items that might make a tenancy fail.”

In June 2015, End Furniture Poverty launched its Furnishing Homes, Furnishing Lives campaign to increase provision of furnished tenancies in social housing. It estimated later that year that there are about 70,000, or less than 2% of social housing stock. Yet furnished tenancies top tenants’ priorities for social landlords to tackle their financial problems, according to surveys by the Human City Institute between 2010 and 2014, with almost half (47%) wanting landlords to provide them.

Ms Campbell says, historically, furnished tenancies were seen as a way for Northern landlords to shift hard-to-let properties but that there is now “a real sea change” in attitudes. “I think more and more landlords are understanding that giving tenants an empty shell won’t set them up for the life that they need,” she says, adding that furnished tenancies help landlords reduce voids.

Sea change

Newcastle Furniture Service (NFS), part of 27,000-home Your Homes Newcastle, rents furniture to 5,300 homes managed by the arm’s-length management organisation (ALMO). It also rents to other social landlords, with this side of the business having grown in recent years. It rented furniture to 3,900 tenants from other organisations in 2010; it currently serves about 6,000 tenancies across 26 providers, the majority in the North East.

Like many furnished tenancy schemes, tenants lease items for a weekly charge financed through a service charge – added to the rent – which is eligible for housing benefit. The cost depends on where the tenant lives and what furniture they need.

However NFS does not offer carpets and curtains, which Ms Campbell says are important “for feeling at home and people’s sense of privacy and dignity”.

Angeline Rochford-Briggs, commercial partnership manager at NFS, says: “A lot of people have asked us for [carpet] but, because this is a rental model, we need to have the flexibility to take a piece out when that person doesn’t want it any more.”

A service charge for furniture and household equipment, including curtains and carpets, can be considered under housing benefit where it is for essential items for the accommodation and remains the property of the original owner (usually the landlord). But it is up to local authorities to decide how housing benefit rules are applied.

Ms Campbell says carpets are only available in a minority of furnished tenancies, and are difficult to obtain through charity furniture projects or councils’ local welfare assistance schemes. “I think they are taken for granted a bit,” she says. “People feel you can live without them more easily.”

“Furniture makes the difference between a house and a home.”

The benefits of furnished tenancies are felt by both tenants and landlords. “We know [that] a large percentage of people who are going into properties, if they can’t get credit through the normal means, they will go to loan sharks or doorstep lenders, or end up with no furniture,” says Deborah Fenton, head of housing at 4,500-home B3 Living in Broxbourne. “[A furnished tenancy] creates a rent-paying culture because, as soon as they move in, their priority is to pay the rent, not buy furniture.”

Yet despite the pros, Ms Campbell says housing associations can be put off by a perception that a furnished tenancy is complicated. The roll-out of Universal Credit and the upcoming Local Housing Allowance (LHA) cap for single tenants under the age of 35 have also created “nervousness” that it might not be a sustainable business model.

Berneslai Homes closed its furnished tenancy scheme to new tenants in April “due to concerns about the impact of welfare reform on tenants’ ability to pay associated service charges”. The 18,655-home ALMO, which had allowed tenants to rent furniture including carpeting and curtains, is reviewing its approach towards the existing 107 furnished tenancies to ensure tenants have financial protections in place.

B3 Living halted furnished tenancies last year after struggling to make them work for affordable rent, which requires that rent must not be higher than 80% of private market rent, inclusive of service charge.

Ms Fenton says the association, which is converting voids into affordable rent, must take a “pragmatic view” and that it would also no longer be feasible to do furnished tenancies for social rent with the introduction of the LHA cap.

She believes there is a “bit of a North/South divide” with the affordability of providing furnished tenancies but says the association will keep an eye on government policy around rent regimes and keep looking at the idea of furnished tenancies.

For Ms Campbell, the matter comes down to the kind of life landlords want for their tenants – providing a roof over their head or creating a home for a family. “Furniture basically makes the difference between a house and a home,” she says. And it “is a home that is a route out of poverty”.

Danielle Hunt, with her daughter Elsie
Danielle Hunt, with her daughter Elsie

Safer for children

Danielle Hunt (above) moved from renting privately into a three-bedroom Orbit house with her 10-month-old daughter, Elsie, and mum, Jackie, in February. It made a “massive difference” to the family having carpet downstairs, in two bedrooms and on the stairs.

“It was one less thing to have to pay out for straight away – because it’s expensive moving as it is – and obviously carpet isn’t very cheap,” says Ms Hunt, aged 23, who has since replaced all but the carpet on the stairs. “Having my daughter, it was much safer than having no carpet at all.”


Essential home items ranked in order of priority

  • Mattress
  • Cooker/hob
  • Bedding
  • Refrigerator
  • Bed base
  • Oven
  • Curtains in bedroom
  • Sofa
  • Curtains in living room
  • Washing machine
  • Freezer
  • Carpets in living room
  • Carpets in bedroom
  • Curtains in all other rooms
  • Carpets in all other rooms
  • Wardrobe
  • Chest of drawers
  • Dining table and chairs

Source: End Furniture Poverty

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