Discrimination in Lettings: The New Ban on 'No DSS' and 'No Children' Under the Renters' Rights Act

For a long time, phrases like "No DSS", "professionals only" or "not suitable for children" were so common in property adverts that landlords often used them without thinking twice. Since 1 May 2026, when Phase 1 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025 commenced, that wording is unlawful — and so is quietly applying the same rule in your head when you read a referencing report.

This is not the Equality Act being extended. It is a separate, new set of provisions in Chapter 3 of Part 1 of the Act, enforced by local authorities through civil penalties of up to £7,000 per breach. It catches landlords, letting agents, referencing services, and even a friend or family member helping you find a tenant.

The good news: you can still run a proper affordability check, you can still decline a tenant who genuinely cannot afford the rent, and there are narrow exceptions for things like genuine retirement housing. The catch is that you have to do all of it in a way that treats benefit income and households with children the same as anyone else.

This guide walks through exactly what's banned, what's still allowed, how to rewrite a typical advert, and what your referencing criteria need to look like from now on.

What actually changed on 1 May 2026

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published a guide for landlords summarising the new duty in one sentence: as a landlord, you cannot do anything to make a tenant less likely to rent a property — or to prevent them from renting it — because they have children or receive benefits.

The statutory wording sits in two parallel sections of the Act. Section 33 covers children; section 34 covers benefits status. They are drafted almost identically. Section 33(1) says:

The practical effect is that every step in the letting process — from listing the property, to handling enquiries, to arranging viewings, to making the offer — has to be free of any rule that disadvantages benefit claimants or families with children.

The ban also reaches into the contracts behind the tenancy. Discriminatory clauses in superior leases, mortgage agreements and insurance policies are overridden by the Act, so a landlord can no longer say "my mortgage forbids tenants on benefits" and rely on that as a defence. The government guidance for local authorities confirms that any such mortgage or superior-lease term is cancelled from 1 May 2026, and insurance terms fall away on renewal.

Who is protected

The Act protects two overlapping groups: tenants with children, and tenants on benefits. Both groups are defined broadly.

"Children"

A child is anyone under 18 who would either live at the property or visit it. That last word matters — a grandparent who has grandchildren staying at weekends is still in scope. The Act also reaches more specific forms of discrimination, such as refusing tenants with foster children or banning children of certain ages.

"Benefits claimants"

The Act does not just mean Universal Credit or legacy Housing Benefit. The MHCLG guidance lists the benefits in scope, and the list is long: Universal Credit, Jobseeker's Allowance, Personal Independence Payment, Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, legacy Housing Benefit, State Pension or Pension Credit, Council Tax Support, Child and Working Tax Credits, Child Benefit, Guardian's Allowance and Carer's Allowance are all included, among others.

In other words, a working tenant who claims Child Benefit, or a pensioner drawing State Pension and Pension Credit, is a "benefits claimant" for the purposes of this Act. Treating them differently from a salaried applicant is potentially a breach.

It is also worth noting that — under the same MHCLG guidance — discrimination still counts as discrimination if it is based on a false belief. If you assume a couple receives benefits because of how they look, dress or speak, and reject them on that basis, you have breached the Act even if they have never claimed a penny.

The Act catches what you do, not what the applicant actually is. A wrong assumption about benefits or children is still discrimination.

What is and isn't unlawful: the practical list

Unlawful

Drawing the landlord guidance and the local authority guidance together, the following are now breaches:

• Advertising the property with phrases like "No DSS", "professionals only", "no benefits", "no children", "working tenants only" or "suitable for couples only".
• Refusing to share information about availability, viewing dates, the rent, or basic property details with someone you believe is on benefits or has children.
• Refusing a viewing to a household with children, or offering only unworkable viewing times to make them give up.
• Telling a referencing agency or guarantor service to discount benefit income when assessing affordability.
• Requiring a guarantor or a larger deposit only from applicants on benefits, while not requiring it from other applicants on similar incomes.
• Including a tenancy clause that bans children from living at or visiting the property, or that prohibits the tenant from claiming benefits during the tenancy.
• Relying on a mortgage or buildings insurance clause that bars benefit claimants to justify a refusal. Those terms have no effect from 1 May 2026.

Still lawful

• Setting an income-to-rent ratio (commonly 30x monthly rent or similar) and applying it equally to every applicant, with all forms of income — including benefits and pension — treated equally.
• Declining a tenant who genuinely cannot afford the rent once their full income has been assessed fairly.
• Asking for a guarantor from every applicant as a standard policy, provided you do not single out benefit claimants for the requirement.
• Restricting children where there is a genuine and proportionate reason — see below.
• Operating purpose-built student or retirement housing where occupancy is genuinely limited.

Affordability checks: how to do them properly

The single biggest area of confusion for self-managing landlords is what to do with referencing and affordability assessments. The Act is explicit on this point. Section 41 says:

You can run an affordability test. You can decline tenants who fail it. What you cannot do is design the test in a way that benefit income is treated as worth less than employment income, or that automatically excludes households with a child in the affordability profile.

The MHCLG guidance for local authorities gives three practical tests councils will apply when a complaint is made:

• Has the landlord set the same income requirement for every applicant?
• Has the landlord counted all forms of income equally, including state benefits and pension?
• Was the income requirement only raised for this applicant because of their children or benefit status?

The guidance also flags a specific trap. If you use a third-party referencing service that strips out benefit income before running its affordability calculation, and an applicant fails as a result, the council can still find that you discriminated — even though the rejection technically came from the agency. The Act explicitly treats anyone acting on your behalf as part of the same chain.

The narrow exception for children: "proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim"

Unlike the benefits provisions, the children provisions in section 33 contain a defence: a restriction on children is allowed if it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim (often shortened to PMLA). There is no equivalent defence for benefit-status discrimination.

The local authority guidance sets the bar high. The aim has to:

• Provide a genuine benefit to someone other than the landlord (financial benefit alone is not enough).
• Not itself be aimed at discriminating against families.
• Be pursued through a restriction that is as narrow as it reasonably can be.

Genuine retirement-only developments, student studios with shared common parts, and HMO rooms where the licence conditions limit occupancy are the textbook examples. A blanket "no children" rule on a standard two-bedroom flat because the landlord prefers a quiet life will not pass.

A cautionary example from the government's own guidance: a landlord rejected a family with a 16-year-old because of a steep spiral staircase. The council found that an outright ban on all children was disproportionate when the actual hazard only realistically applied to a much younger child. A narrower restriction might have been defensible; a blanket one was not.

Rewriting your advert

If you are about to relist a property — or worse, have an old listing still live from before May — assume any of the following are now problems:

• "No DSS" / "No benefits" / "No housing benefit"
• "Professionals only" / "Working tenants only"
• "Couples only" / "Single occupant preferred" (where the intent is to exclude families)
• "Not suitable for children" / "No children"
• "Proof of employment essential" (acceptable if framed neutrally; problematic if used to filter out benefit income)

A compliant advert says what the property is, what the rent is, and what affordability standard you apply to everyone. Something like:

"Two-bedroom mid-terrace, £1,100 pcm, available 1 August. Standard affordability check applies: combined gross household income of at least £33,000 from any source, supported by documentation. Guarantor required where applicable."

That advert is neutral. It tells a benefit-claiming applicant that their benefit income counts towards the £33,000. It tells a family they will be assessed on the same financial test as a couple. And it gives you a defensible audit trail if a council ever asks.

Rewriting your referencing criteria

A short audit of your own internal rules is worth an hour of your time before you advertise the next property. The questions to ask yourself, in order:

1. Does my income test apply the same multiple to every applicant? If you use 2.5× or 30× monthly rent, make sure it is identical regardless of who is applying.
2. Am I counting all income equally? Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Child Benefit, PIP, ESA, Carer's Allowance and the rest must all carry the same weight per pound as a salary.
3. Is my guarantor policy uniform? If you sometimes ask for a guarantor and sometimes don't, write down the trigger and make sure it isn't "applicant is on benefits".
4. Are my referencing provider's rules aligned? Ask in writing whether their affordability model includes benefit income. If it doesn't, switch product or override manually.
5. What evidence will I keep? Save dated copies of adverts, the affordability rule in writing, and the basis for each accept/reject decision. Councils investigate on the balance of probabilities, and the landlord with a clean paper trail wins.

Enforcement: who can fine you, and how much

Enforcement sits with local housing authorities — typically your council's private-sector housing team — not with the courts in the first instance. The MHCLG guidance sets out three escalating penalty types:

• A first breach can attract a civil penalty of up to £7,000.
• A continuous breach — where the discriminatory conduct carries on more than 28 days after a final notice — triggers a further penalty of up to £7,000 for each 28-day continuation.
• A repeat breach — the same kind of conduct again within 5 years of an earlier final notice — attracts up to £7,000 for the new breach, plus an additional £7,000 on top.

Councils decide on the balance of probabilities — the civil standard, not the criminal one. Evidence they will typically gather includes screenshots of adverts, text and email exchanges with applicants, and witness statements from the prospective tenant. Notably, the tenant does not have to prove they actually have children or actually receive benefits; the breach is in the landlord's conduct, not in the truth of the underlying belief.

Applicants also have their own routes: they can complain to a letting agent redress scheme (where an agent is involved), bring civil proceedings, or, from later in the Renters' Rights Act rollout, escalate through the new PRS landlord ombudsman. These routes can result in apologies, directions to act, and compensation — separately from any council fine.

A short worked example

Consider a landlord in Bristol letting a two-bedroom flat at £1,250 pcm. Two applicants apply.

• Applicant A is a single professional earning £36,000 gross.
• Applicant B is a single parent earning £18,000 part-time, plus £9,500 a year in Universal Credit, plus £1,300 a year in Child Benefit — a total of £28,800.

If the landlord's published rule is "30× monthly rent in annual income" — i.e. £37,500 — neither applicant strictly meets the threshold. Declining both, applying the rule consistently, is lawful. Declining Applicant B alone, on the basis that "benefits don't really count" or "we don't want children in the flat", is unlawful, regardless of how it is phrased.

If the landlord instead applies a 25× rule — £31,250 — only Applicant A passes. Again, declining Applicant B on income grounds is lawful, but only because the rule excludes everyone below £31,250, not because the rejected income happened to be benefit income.

The key is the rule first, the applicant second. If you can write your test on a sheet of paper before you see who applied, you are very likely on safe ground.

When to get advice

Some cases are genuinely contested. A landlord operating a small leasehold flat in a block where the head lease genuinely restricts children, but the title deed is ambiguous; an HMO with licensing conditions that effectively cap occupancy; a property next to a building site where there is a credible safety argument — these are real edge cases.

If you find yourself reaching for a children-related exception, or you have inherited a property with old mortgage or insurance terms that contradict the Act, get specific advice from a housing solicitor or your local authority's private-sector housing team before you advertise. The cost of a one-hour consultation is small compared to a £7,000 penalty, and councils are generally happy to give informal steers before a complaint arrives.

The broader picture is straightforward, even if the detail is fiddly: the lettings market is now expected to treat every adult applicant the same, regardless of where their income comes from, and to treat a household with children the same as a household without. Most landlords already wanted to do that. The Act has now removed the gap between best practice and legal minimum.