Just come across this thread so...Mark Cohen asked (eight years ago!
"I've always assumed that in the line "The landlord's too skinty to pay" that "skinty" meant "cheap" or "miserly", and that it derived from a contraction of "skinflint""
I had the line as,
"Gaffer's too skinny to pay"
and I've heard 'skinny' used for 'mean' in various parts of the UK thus
"The boss is too mean to pay the proper rate"
I suppose Mark that in the intervening years since you asked the question you have either sound the answer or stopped caring! However....