2023-12-02 03:59:30
Excluded from the rental market and more likely to have a delinquent tenant. The difficulties and barriers that older people face in learning about new regulations – such as the Housing Law – and accessing digital procedures and operations, whether they are tenants or owners, have turned the elderly into the weakest link regarding leasing.
Although currently one in three landlords is over 65 years of age, the evolution of the rental sector has excluded them. Discrimination based on age in the rental sector is reflected in phenomena such as late payment. Although this is one of the biggest concerns for all owners, in the case of the elderly the vulnerability is much greater. According to data from the Delinquent Tenants File collected by Rental Insurance in its study ‘Rent and older people’, 53% of late payment cases are recorded in properties that are rented by a person over 65 years of age.
Among the reasons, in the study carried out by Safe Rental, a company that has a portfolio of 21,000 rental homes, respondents point to a lack of knowledge of the law (45%), and difficulties in choosing another tenant (34%). Furthermore, 45% say they do not know how to select a tenant and 58% do not know what documentation they have to request or what criteria to base it on.
Furthermore, on the one hand, there are tenants who use this lack of knowledge to take advantage of their landlords, but there are also others who have increasing difficulties in paying the rent due to the general rise in housing prices and the loss of purchasing power, which which has caused concern to proliferate.
Likewise, this report also warns of the “digital divide” that affects this group. Currently, it points out that around 900,000 people over 65 years of age are left out of the rental market, between owners and tenants. From Seguro Rental, they have warned that the proliferation of rental companies that base all their operations on the online channel, the disappearance of in-person service offices and the lack of knowledge and insecurity of the digital environment are causing older people to be unable to carry out real estate operations. and, therefore, are expelled from the market.
“The digital divide that older people face means that in many cases they cannot access and use this type of technology and, therefore, be part of real estate operations,” explains the general director of Rental Insurance, David Caraballo. For this reason, 87% of those surveyed by the study demand a greater investment of resources in tools that facilitate these tasks for those over 65 years of age.
In view of this situation, Safe Rental, through its Foundation and in collaboration with the Spanish Federation for the Defense of the Elderly (Fedepem), has launched a new protocol for older people. Thus, “those over 65 years of age will now have help with any doubts they may have when signing and processing a rental contract, selecting the tenant or making changes in the ownership of supplies,” says Caraballo.
What does the protocol consist of? Preferred office hours from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.; personalized attention with a specialized manager; written information, either by mail or by collecting it in person; in-person and accompanied signature; and more service points, with the opening of 15 new offices that will be added to the more than 50 current ones.
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