Council leasing by council › East Hertfordshire
Let your house to East Hertfordshire council
What East Hertfordshire offers private landlords who want the council as their tenant or their letting agent, in the council's own words, with the page to apply on.
Yes. East Hertfordshire runs "Rent Deposit Scheme".
The council can advance a deposit and rent in advance to residents accepted onto the scheme who don't have the deposit and are on a low income or on benefits. Tenant facing page; no landlord leasing or guaranteed rent scheme is described. A 2023 decision record on democracy.eastherts.gov.uk shows the council took a five year lease of five flats in Hertford for temporary accommodation after being approached by the owner, but no open leasing offer to landlords is published.
How these schemes work
Councils have a duty to house people they accept as homeless and a shortage of their own stock, so many lease or manage private landlords' houses instead. The common shapes are a lease of three to five years where the council becomes your tenant and pays rent whether the house is occupied or not, a management arrangement where the council lets and looks after it for you, or a one-off incentive (a cash payment, a deposit guarantee, rent in advance) for taking a council-nominated tenant on a normal tenancy. Terms, rent levels and what they want vary by council and change with demand, so treat every page here as a pointer to the council's own page, not a quote.
Before you sign
Check the same things you would for any let: whether the address is inside an HMO Article 4 area if the council plans to house more than one household, which licensing applies, and what the LHA rate is, since many schemes pay at or just under it. The free HMO Article 4 checker tests any postcode; Kerbio shows all three on the Rightmove listing before you buy.
Source: East Hertfordshire council, read 2026-09-28. Schemes open and close with demand; confirm with the council before relying on any figure.