council tell landlord to increase my rent by £175

Anthillmob

mimie wrote: »

oh God ..you guys are all giving me so much advice..thanks so much..yes the carpet in the bedroom is mouldy..i have to scrub it with mt muscle bathroom, every so often..I ll have to tell them this..I am writing them a long letter.I ll also mention about transferring my deposit. its just so heart breaking, when you do everything thats "right", work fulltime, pay your bills, taxes etc..and all you get is hardship..and you see people who dont and get rehoused ..given houses with gardens etc..(good for them..I am not envious at all we all have different circumstances), the coucil actually told me it would be easier if I was on income support..and my landlord said that too...well I wont be crying my eyes out over the rent increase and try to fight it..make you wonder.strange system..Martin Lewis where are you??????this needs some whistle blowing !!!.

where can I post to get maximum response?

dont scrub a carpet with mr muscle. it will not help. it needs recarpeting and your landlord should deal with this if its mouldy and damp.

Anthillmob

the drying your clothes indoors will add to the mould problem already present and your landlord is well out of order imho for expecting you to live in such conditions innthe first place regardless of what you are charged rent wise.

we had a landlord who didnt give a !!!! about this probhlem ourselves a while back and that was a council property landlord. imho all, well most, be they private or housing association or council are shoddy.

please dont take my £15 a week whinge direct at you.

BitterAndTwisted

I'm not surprised the OP has mould, they have been drying their laundry in the flat for the last five years.

Any way, mould can be a serious health hazard so it needs sorting asap

BitterAndTwisted

Anthillmob wrote: »

all, well most, be they private or housing association or council are shoddy.

Not always in every case. My downstairs neighbours have rented out their lovely 2-bed flat and the ten or so people living in it have turned it into a slum. And they keep getting them round to fix windows they have broken themselves. God only knows what the place will be like when they move out. They're even using one of the bedrooms to cook in

mimie

I am not taking your opinion about the £15 personal, at all..I have not been getting it, nor even given the oportunity to get it by the council..i just was trying to prove how contradictory they are..!! I think its very wrong..the whole lha system plus benefits system is very wrong. It only encourages people to stay on income support, and penalises those like me, lone parents working on low incomes.Pirority for Affordable rent mainly goes to those who are income support..experience shows that people have been making themselves homeless so that they can get council house. Those on income support and are in private rental will not find a job, because that will mean they ll have to pay part of their rent, and the more they earn the more they ll pay. So what do they do....have more kids, stay unemployed, till they are rehoused, by then, its difficult to employ them..re training etc is needed. Maybe..you would only be moved to council place if you prove that you work and maybe working should be way of moving up the council list for affordable rent ! then even the coucil will be getting rent paid to it, rather than those who the coucil still ends up paying rent for !!! maybe if they continue being umemployed, they remain in private rental.
I am still going to fight this unfair rent rise till the very end..they cant just do that !!!I just want to get out of this benefits systems...just want to get a place I can afford...!!I dont want to get help from anyone..why do they make it so difficult for people to live withing their means.!

silvercar

The £15 is paid if your rent is lower than the max LHA for the area and your entitlement. So if you are entitled to LHA upto £925 you can choose to rent a cheaper place and keep £15 a week or you can rent something for more and pay the difference.

In your shoes, you clearly have a landlord prepared to give up a weeks rent (get this in writing BTW, you don't want to be accused of having rent arrears), so I would negotiate with the landlord to reduce the rent to around £850 so you keep £65 a month.

LHA and the £15 a week scheme is all designed to give you the choice about where you live. This is a private rental, you choose whether to stay or to move to somewhere cheaper, you choose whether to live in a place where rent is £850, £925 or more and pay a top-up.

If LHA gives you a better deal then move onto it. The system is how it is; work within it to get the best deal for yourself.

If your flat is really damp then start looking for another one. If the damp is caused by drying clothes indoors then start increasing the ventilation.


I would (a) move on to LHA (b) negotiate with the landlord to reduce the rent to a level where you keep £15 a week (c) save up the £15s until you have a deposit and then can move.

You have the right to get the council private rent officer to review the rent. You rrent increase notice should tell you how to do it. Tell the landlord you will do this, if he insists on £925.

Emma1973

But they can just do that, especially if the council have decided that it is a fair rent! It is also quite possible to come off of HB have a break for a week then go onto LHA, but this doesnt always benefit the tenant, and they should check before they do it!

The only thing that will happen if you dont pay the increase in the rent is that you will be evicted, then the council will not rehouse you because you will have been deemed to have made yourself homeless.

Unfortunately many landlords are doing this, not to get rich, but to cover their own backs, because LHA is paid directly to the tenant and not the landlord, the temptation to spend it can be quite pressing, especially when other bills come in (Oh and Christmas, quite a few see it as a Christmas bonus!).
This is not all tenants on lha, I dont want to generalise, but it is a massive problem but unfortunately Landlords have to find the money for mortgages, insurance and maintenance from somewhere and they are doing this by raising rents for LHA tenants to offset for those who dont pay.

silvercar

Rent is increased by signing a new contract or serving a section 13 notice. On the section 13 notice it tells you exactly how to get the rent reviewed. Of course there is the risk that the officer could increase the rent, but sounds unlikely in this case.

Jowo_2

I feel immense sympathy for the OP and can't offer any advice on how to remedy this, other than to contact Shelter and keep in touch with the local council about the likelihood of being rehoused if the landlord serves you notice should you refuse to participate in switching to LHA and can't meet the rent - the latter decision is something that you have to consider though it essentially means that you get into arrears because the rent level is unaffordable.

You have to think whether you've got the appetite to stand up to the landlord and say 'No thanks to LHA, just serve me notice to get yourself a new tenant and I'll take my chances as to whether this triggers my entry into a secure social housing tenancy.If you insist on the higher rent in the meantime, as it is greater than my income, I cannot pay and therefore arrears are inevitable'

Remember that the local council, when you are served notice, does not help as homeless candidates when they are defined as making themselves homeless intentionally - i.e. do something that causes their accommodation to end such as rent arrears BUT the latter is only a problem if they could have but did not pay your rent. Therefore you should seek clarification with the council and Shelter as to how your application will be treated if you refuse to participate in the switch to LHA, the landlord insists on the rent difference which you can't afford and this triggers your landlord to serve you notice (since if you serve him notice, the council probably won't help you).

In context (and not to defend your landlord's approach in anyway), many housing benefit claimants could not get accommodation because the HB levels were way under market rents so LHA was introduced to try and set the rent to reflect market rates on a postcode basis. The aim is to make it more attractive to landlords to rent and therefore increase choice for the tenant. Obviously, the pendulum has swung the other way and now claimants are receiving subsidies for rent levels that they can never afford through employment, trapping some of those on benefits.

Consider bringing your issues to the attention of your local MP so they can see the inadvertent effect of switching to LHA has had on some landlords who now set their rents according to more generous rental allowances under HB and the impact it has on you. Good luck.

silvercar

You have to think whether you've got the appetite to stand up to the landlord and say 'No thanks to LHA, just serve me notice to get yourself a new tenant and I'll take my chances as to whether this triggers my entry into a secure social housing tenancy.If you insist on the higher rent in the meantime, as it is greater than my income, I cannot pay and therefore arrears are inevitable'

Your problem is that rent arrears will build up gradually, the council will tell you to stay put until evicted. In the mean time the landlord will have to take you to court to evict you for non payment and then go back to court to get baliffs appointed. You could then be pursued through the courts for the landlords costs and could end up with a CCJ.