Repository navigation
is_renting omits RENT_FROM_HA (RENT_PRIVATELY listed twice) #2064
Description
is_renting (policyengine_uk/variables/household/demographic/is_renting.py, on main and at 2.100.0) builds its tenure list as:
RENT_TENURES = [
tenures.RENT_PRIVATELY,
tenures.RENT_FROM_COUNCIL,
tenures.RENT_PRIVATELY,
]RENT_PRIVATELY appears twice and RENT_FROM_HA (housing association) is missing, so a housing-association tenant is never renting to the engine. Everything that reads is_renting treats them as non-renters.
Where it was found. While making the WAS wealth donor coherent with tenure in PolicyEngine/microcosm#1063 (items 5 and 6, PR PolicyEngine/microcosm#1089), the data side had to carry four explicit tenure flags (owned outright, mortgaged, renting privately, renting socially) rather than read is_renting, because the engine flag disagreed with tenure_type for every RENT_FROM_HA household. In the FRS 2024-25 frame that is about a tenth of all households.
Expected. The list should be RENT_PRIVATELY, RENT_FROM_COUNCIL, RENT_FROM_HA (the three renting values of TenureType). A test that asserts is_renting is true for each renting tenure value and false for the two owner values would have caught the duplicate.
Filed from the microcosm#1063 work; the data-side workaround stays in place either way.
Activity
vahid-ahmadi commentedon Oct 4, 2026
Confirmed on
main.is_renting.pylistsRENT_PRIVATELYtwice and omitsRENT_FROM_HA, so housing-association tenants read as not renting.On scope, inside policyengine-uk the bug is narrower than it might look:
LHA_eligiblereadsbenunit_is_renting, and that already lists all three renting tenures,RENT_FROM_HAincluded.is_rentingis read only by the two student-finance proxies,maintenance_loan_living_arrangementandmaintenance_loan_household_income. So inside the engine, the effect is on maintenance-loan living arrangements for students in housing-association homes.uk-cliff-watchreadsis_rentingdirectly, so it is affected too.A one-line fix plus the parametrised test you describe (true for the three renting values, false for the owner values) would close it. It's also worth making
is_rentingandbenunit_is_rentingshare one tenure list, so the two can't drift again.