Finding a HAP landlord

No need to mention HAP or the housing list to any landlord in advance.

My strategy, if I were in your situation, would be not to say anything at all.

Fact is you are employed and if you get the place they deem you reliable anyway and that should be enough.

After acceptance just say "look, things have changed, I need to apply for HAP"...and you can not under any circumstances be discriminated against at that point due to HAP.

HAP isn't related to you being employed or not. You can get it as long as you are under the income threshold (which varies by county and whether or not you have kids or depedents). What's more, if you get onto the list while your income is below it, even if it goes up later you usually will still get to avail of it, although since you have to pay a % of your income toward HAP, it will have diminishing returns and eventually end up costing more than just paying the rent directly.

You can avoid mentioning anything about HAP up front, but you'll also need to be prepared to pay the full rent yourself for a time in that case. One of the issues with HAP is that the council pays the current month's rent on the last Wednesday of the month, while almost all landlords will demand rent in advance (e.g. you pay November 1st for November's rent). HAP or no, you are still responsible for ensuring that the full rent amount is paid on time according to the terms of your tenancy, so that means you'll need to "front-load" that rent out of your own pocket so that when the HAP payment comes in, it actually covers the next month's rent rather than the current month. It can also take some time to get the HAP approval, especially if the landlord gets stubborn about filling out the necessary paperwork or can't produce a tax clearance certificate, so you will have to cover the rent out of pocket for a while until that is all sorted (if it ever is; if your landlord is not tax compliant or they refuse to submit the paperwork, you'll be unable to receive HAP, and while the landlord will likely get in some hot water for their noncompliance eventually, that may not help you avoid eviction for rent arrears in the meantime...).

You may be eligible for HAP (rather than entitled to) if you find a property that complies. However you're being wildly ambitious thinking that HAP will be processed within a month, even pre-Covid that rarely happened, so just be prepared for further delays

It's not you per se but the exprience some landlord have had with HAP tenants - Some are brilliant & others take the p$ss & ruin it for others after them. Once a landlord has been stung by a bad HAP tenant they are very slow to take another.

Also HAP criteria for a landlord is an added headache compared to someone not on it. May not be fair but that is the reality. Offering a higher deposit with HAP may also be a way go to give the landlord some reassurance.

No the same as not saying which bank you use at the time of renting. Once you pay the rent on time and in advance like other tenants there is no issue in theory. I have no problem with HAP but I have had prospective tenants say they will top up above the allowable amounts and when I said no they claimed I was discriminating them.

This is exactly why I wont become a landlord.

If I do get a tenant that lies about their situation, its a long process to get them out again.

Its easy to see why a landlord does not want the hassle with HAP. Neighbors certainly dont want it.

I think you need to be honest up front.

If your landlord finds out you lied to them about anything then they will just give you notice to quit on the basis that you lied to them, though they probably will just cite no reason since saying anything at all could lead to accusations of discrimination.

As you say they might not find out you are lying, but when you ask for HAP they will surely find out.

Im not a landlord but based on the things i read on boards, if I was I would be leaving no stone unturned in the unlikely event i was to hand over a house to them.

And if i even thought someone was lying to me about something they would be out before the 6 months are up, because lord knows what else they are lying about.