Propertymark has warned that one-off crisis payments cannot plug the widening gap between Local Housing Allowance and real rents, arguing that many private tenants remain priced out of homes even where emergency support is available.
The trade body has written to DWP minister Baroness Sherlock after she pointed to local authority Crisis and Resilience Fund payments as a backstop for renters who cannot meet housing costs. Propertymark said that may help with short-term shocks, but it does not solve the underlying affordability gap created by frozen LHA rates.
For landlords, the immediate issue is not only tenant hardship but payment risk. When housing support falls further behind market rents, arrears risk rises, affordability checks become harder to pass, and more tenancies come under strain – especially in areas where lower-cost private rental stock is already scarce.
Propertymark says frozen LHA is the real problem
In its letter, Propertymark said the government should restore LHA to at least the 30th percentile of local rents, uprate it every year, and consider moving to the 50th percentile when public finances allow. It also wants the DWP to publish data on how often Crisis and Resilience Fund housing payments are used, how many applications are approved or refused, and how much support is actually paid towards rent.
The body said that data matters because it would show whether emergency funding is covering genuine short-term shocks or repeatedly patching an ongoing shortfall between rent and benefit support. That distinction matters for landlords assessing affordability and for councils dealing with rising housing pressure.
Propertymark added that LHA was never designed to cover every rent in every area, but repeated freezes have pushed support further away from the real market as rents have risen. Research it cited from February 2025 found just 2.7 percent of private rental listings were affordable to housing benefit recipients, down from 12 percent in 2021-22.
Why the gap matters for landlords now
That leaves landlords facing a familiar problem from a sharper angle. Ministers want fewer barriers for benefit claimants in the private rented sector, but landlords and agents still have to test whether a tenancy is financially workable in practice.
Propertymark said anti-discrimination measures in the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 will have limited effect if claimants still cannot cover the rent. It said adequate LHA would help more households pass affordability checks and sustain tenancies, while also giving landlords more confidence to let to tenants receiving benefits.
This follows Landlord Knowledge’s July report on housing benefit-backed affordability, which found that only 1.9 percent of advertised rentals were within benefit support levels. The latest intervention from Propertymark suggests the pressure has now shifted back onto ministers to explain whether emergency support is masking a deeper failure in mainstream housing support.
Propertymark is also part of the Cutting the Cost Coalition, alongside councils, homelessness charities and landlord groups, and said it co-signed a letter with more than 40 organisations last year urging the government to lift the freeze. Landlords watching arrears exposure, void risk and local demand trends will see that as another sign that the benefit-rent mismatch is moving back up the policy agenda.
More broadly, the warning lands as debate continues over wider intervention in the rental market, including recent arguments over rent controls and supply. For landlords, the common thread is that affordability policy is starting to shape tenant demand, arrears risk and letting decisions more directly.
Propertymark’s full statement and policy asks are set out in its latest Local Housing Allowance warning.
What this means for landlords
- If you let to benefit-supported tenants: recheck affordability assumptions against current LHA levels in your area, not older figures or broad national averages.
- Watch for: more political pressure to uprate LHA, which could improve tenant affordability without changing headline rents.
- If arrears risk is rising: review guarantor, payment-plan and referencing policies carefully so they match current benefit realities.
- For lower-rent stock: demand from benefit-backed households is unlikely to ease while affordable supply remains this thin.
- Bottom line: emergency grants may steady some tenancies, but they do not remove the growing gap between support levels and market rents.
Editor’s view
Emergency funds are a pressure valve, not a housing policy. If ministers want landlords to keep housing lower-income tenants, the rent support maths has to work far more often than it does now.
Author: Editorial Team – UK landlord & buy-to-let news, policy, and finance
Published: 12 August 2026
Sources: Propertymark
Related reading: Housing benefit now covers just 1.9% of rentals
