housing benefit problem

litlwren

Hi - I'm new here and hope someone can help me.... in Feb I was made redundant, I've signed on and now receive income-based JSA. An application was automatically sent to my local council regarding housing and council tax benefit. They have just let me know I can get council tax benefit, but am ineligible for housing benefit as my landlord is also my ex partner and they therefore consider this to be not a 'genuine' tenancy. This is one of their conditions. I can appeal, in writing, within the next month but am not too good at putting my case, I get all waffly and hot'n'bothered by authority across a desk, they just make me feel grubby and inadequate....

Brief history - we split up last year following revelations about his other women and my partner left home, where I still live, early last summer. It's his house, mortgage in his name, but bought as a home for both of us a few years ago. He also owns a couple of other houses both of which he also rents out, one as a whole, the other as rooms. He is known to the council as a registered landlord as the 'room' house is a registered HMO. I have to live somewhere so we agreed since this was my 'home' I'd stay here as a tenant. I tried to claim housing benefit last summer but was turned down then too, for the same reason. Everything was still very fresh at that time and I was very upset and didn't follow it up at that time. Now I'm much more positive and looking to the future, but of course jobless and have no money apart from the income-based JSA.

My landlord has also made me change my living arrangements here as last November he insisted on letting out my spare bedroom (there are 2 bedrooms here) to a complete stranger who also of course shares the bathroom and kitchen which I really wasn't very happy about. I have a proper tenancy agreement which states quite clearly the rooms I have sole use of, the shared rooms, and the amount payable.

I hope I haven't gone on too much, and this all makes sense - surely I have grounds to appeal against my council's decision?? But how do I go about it?? Any advice welcome

NASA_2

Citizens advice would be a good place to start I guess. I dont know too much about housing benefit or LHA.

I would have thought the Tenancy Agreement would have been enough to satisfy them as it is a legal agreement.

Are you divorced now or just seperated?

alwaysonthego_2

When you will be treated as not paying rent
You may be excluded from Housing Benefit by this rule if you pay rent to a close relative who also lives in the home, or to a former partner for the home where you used to live together.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/life/benefits/help_with_your_rent_-_housing_benefit.htm#other_housing_benefit_restrictions

so there is no point appealing it, you should find somewhere else.

NASA_2

alwaysonthego wrote: »

When you will be treated as not paying rent
You may be excluded from Housing Benefit by this rule if you pay rent to a close relative who also lives in the home, or to a former partner for the home where you used to live together.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/life/benefits/help_with_your_rent_-_housing_benefit.htm#other_housing_benefit_restrictions

so there is no point appealing it, you should find somewhere else.

Wow, that's amazingly harsh.

litlwren

Hi - thanks for such fast replies

We were not married, just lived together.... my landlord (don't like calling him my ex, leaves a bad taste y'know) is also cross as this really means they think he's also not a legit landlord

alwaysonthego - is this really it then, no point in my pursuing it further???

alwaysonthego_2

litlwren wrote: »

Hi - thanks for such fast replies

We were not married, just lived together....

alwaysonthego - is this really it then, no point in my pursuing it further???

Unless you can persude him to let you live in one of his other houses then it is I am afraid.

litlwren

Oh right... but he'd still be my ex-partner (soap&water) and still my landlord so in the letter of their conditions I still wouldn't be eligible?? flippin' heck...

bestpud

You pay rent via a commercial tenancy and yet you allowed your LL to move someone into your home?

You didn't refuse, or think to seek legal advice about this?

That alone tells me there is not merely a commercial let, or you pay very cheap rent, or something...

Would you allow this if you rented from a stranger?

alwaysonthego_2

litlwren wrote: »

Oh right... but he'd still be my ex-partner (soap&water) and still my landlord so in the letter of their conditions I still wouldn't be eligible?? flippin' heck...

According to the CAB website it says house that you lived in together.

litlwren

alwaysonthego wrote: »

According to the CAB website it says house that you lived in together.

Yes it does and it says so on their conditions they sent me too - but it also says 'may' not be eligible not 'will' and that I do have the right to appeal.... I just hoped there'd be some way I could get some financial help with the rent now I've been made redundant.... oh well, what a !!!!!! eh....

bestpud - I didn't really have much choice regarding the letting out of the spare room, after all it's not my house, just my home. I have numerous pets etc and can't take them anywhere else, and can't just get rid of them either. He knows this and has me in a corner really. I pay £80 per wk excl. bills for my part (the main part) of the house. This all happened within a few months of the split and I was very raw and very shaken (and very angry) and didn't really know whether I was coming or going. Benefits and all this had never figured in my life before and I really didn't know what to do. Just staying in my home seemed to be the priority.

CIS

IIRC the regs do state that it has to be a property that was previously lived in together - a property that you never lived in together should be fine.

Its not that they think that you or the L/L are fiddling its just that they identified this as an area ripe for fraud and so wrote it in to the list of ineligible tenancies (reg 10 of the HB regs 2006 IIRC) - this reg gives a list of a dozen or so reasons that people would be automatically dis-entitled if they meet the listed circumstances.