In 2012 Georgina Summerfield set up her first lettings agency after a six-year spell working for local authorities and latterly Crisis, as a private rented sector consultant. Reel forward ten years and her company, Ethical Lettings, this year won Gold for best agent in the South East at The Negotiator Awards.

But it’s unusual for another reason; the agency is a not-for-profit company that deals only in tenants referred to it by 12 local authorities from the north of Hampshire up into inner London along the A3 corridor.

Every one of our tenants is on Universal Credit, either fully or via a top-up and we run a guaranteed rent scheme for landlords.

It has 250 properties and 800 tenants and has grown fast by offering landlords a guaranteed rent scheme, which at the moment means an annual rent payment book of some £2 million.

“We collect 98.3% of our rent,” she says. “Every one of our tenants is on Universal Credit either fully or via a top-up, and we run a guaranteed rent scheme for landlords in-house that really works in practice as well as in theory, which is not easy given the market were operating within and the kind of tenants we are dealing with.”

How do you achieve that?

“Because Universal Credit (UC) is our bread and butter we know the system inside out and work closely with local authorities and have contacts within job centres,” she says.

“We also have a fantastic finance manager who helps tenants with UC claims.”

Why did you set up Ethical Lettings?

“Originally, we had seen that there was a huge gap between many people’s incomes and the properties they could afford to rent, such as carers and teachers,” she says.

“Many of them just weren’t passing high street traditional agency referencing checks because they didn’t meet the affordability criteria – a situation not helped by the pre-Tenant Fees Act costs such as a six-week deposit and chunky agency fees.

“And with the changes to benefits coming at that time too including switching payments away from landlords to tenants, it was a challenging time for councils looking to house low-income households within the PRS.

My experience having worked at Crisis, where I liaised with landlords, led me to spot an opportunity to make a difference.

“My experience having worked at Crisis where I liaised with landlords led me to spot an opportunity to make a difference and to create a product that took away a lot of the risk that landlords saw when dealing with tenants on benefits – so guaranteed rent was the best solution.

“Ethical Lettings does its own in-house referencing by asking the local authorities for as much information as possible about the prospective tenants, rather than using a third party.

How did you sign up so many local authorities?

“We’ve had to prove our worth to local authorities although obviously we’re a not-for-profit company – but we charge LAs for each tenant we take on.

“There’s a tenant support team in place too who look for warning signs that a tenancy may be about to fail, and therefore we help them get back on the straight and narrow.

“That way we help stop the recurring problem of families or people constantly re-joining local authority housing lists after their PRS tenancies fail and they are evicted.

“We’ve got a few HMOs although I don’t like them but the rest of ours are standalone homes for families.”

Are you unique?

“I think we’re unique in the South of England. Some local authorities do what we do in-house, but I think we’re the only not-for-profit agency to do it independently this side of London,” she says.

Doesn’t your model work because the areas you operate in are relatively affluent?

“No, our model could work anywhere – but it is easier to operate in areas where the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rate is slightly higher and therefore the gap between it and the local market rents isn’t so big. We cross-subside areas with differing LA levels and therefore help smooth out the gaps,” she says.

“Landlords will take less than the market rent if they know it’s being guaranteed and can see the other ethical merits in our model too.”

Why do tenants on benefits need help?

“The current supply and demand problems within the PRS means that, because there are so many people chasing fewer and fewer properties, those on benefits are very restricted in what can pay because of the LHA rates, which have been frozen by the government while rents have been rising,” she says.

“Our tenants are getting priced out of the market so things are getting really tough in an unprecedented way.

“Unfortunately, people on lower incomes who are at the bottom end of the market will struggle more and more and lose out in the PRS, and as a result homelessness will increase.

“It’s all coming to a crescendo at the moment and I was really hoping that the Chancellor’s recent budget was going to raise the LHA rates, but it didn’t – yes, individual benefits are being raised by the rate of inflation but not the LHA – so all the increases in benefits will just about cover the rising rents.

“And despite the budget announcements, people will continue to be priced out of the market.

“It will come to a head of the next few months and the Government will have to do something about it. If they don’t, more and more people will end up in hostels and B&Bs.”

What would you say to housing secretary Michael Gove if he was in front of you now?

“If he wants to give tenants choice, independence and control – and a chance to improve their lives then he has to raise the LHA rates so tenants can be more competitive in the housing markets,” she says.

“By not doing you’re just putting the poorest people in the country into the lowest quality accommodation and storing up more social problems in the long run.”