COUNCILS are forking out tens of millions of pounds a year in payments to greedy landlords to incentivise them to house homeless families, new research revealed today.

Campaign group Generation Rent sent Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to all 32 London councils and 10 councils elsewhere in England relating to the one-off payments.

Thirty-seven of them revealed that they had collectively awarded landlords £31 million in the one-off payments on 10,792 occasions in 2024-25.

Separate from housing benefit, the payments are awarded to landlords to encourage them to house those who are homeless or facing eviction.

The councils with the highest annual spends included Manchester City Council, which spent £3.3m on the payments, and Enfield Council, which spent £2.7m. Bankrupt Birmingham council shelled out £1.6m.

Payments were particularly lucrative for landlords in London. In one case, Southwark Council handed a landlord a single payment amounting to £15,385, while Camden Council awarded another costing £13,500.

The analysis estimated that the money could have funded 116 public libraries for a year. 

Generation Rent chief executive Ben Twomey said: “The soaring cost of renting and the government’s decision to freeze the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) has put councils across the country in a near impossible position. 

“In a desperate bid to avoid placing people in temporary accommodation, they’re forced to pay individual landlords sometimes tens of thousands of pounds just for them to agree to rent out their home. It’s a senseless waste of our public money.

“The government’s housebuilding targets are welcome, but these findings show urgent action is needed to address the widening lack of affordable homes.”

He called on the government to unfreeze LHA in the upcoming Autumn Budget, and to give metro mayors the power to limit rent increases through the upcoming Devolution Bill. 

Data was last collected on landlord incentives in London in 2018. Since then, the money spent by councils has increased by 54 per cent, the research found.

According to homelessness charity Crisis, only 2.5 per cent of private rented homes in England were affordable for people on housing benefit last year.

The government was contacted for comment.