For all the benefit frothers out there

SingleSue

PasturesNew wrote: »

I don't even know designer names ... certainly never owned any.

Most expensive 'trainers' (well, near equivalent) I bought were £8 or so, about 5-6 years ago. My 'crocs' are fake (Oh - Aldi are having some in 5 colours in the next two weeks ... £2.99... so fill yer boots).

Right now I am wearing: charity shop jeans (£2.50), charity shop shirt (£2.50), donated fake crocs (free). Even my job interview outfit is a £15 dress I bought in 2000, a £2 jacket from a charity shop, shoes from a charity shop £4 and I don't have a bag, so I use a document case an ex boss was throwing out in 2006.

Right now I am wearing a nightshirt bought by my ex hubby when we were still married! (It's a lazy morning after a bit of a night, youngest whacked his elbow on a door frame).

My usual stuff is a pair of jeans bought in a sale (£5), a T shirt which is ages old (from married days) or sale T shirt (winter is a sale jumper £5), a pair of trainers bought in a sale over 5 years ago (£5).

My interview/smart outfit is a pair of trousers (sale £3) and a top (donated to me from a poster on here).

I have never been able to buy branded expensive clothes or shoes, even when I earned enough to do so...I've always thought it such a waste of money. Why spend loads when you could find something that would do just as well for a lot less money.

Ex hubby, on the other hand, coveted an expensive watch (£1400), always wanted branded items (food and clothes), the latest games systems etc...the disagreements were great in this house over it!

StevieJ

tabskitten wrote: »

TK maxx- you never need pay more than £20 for branded trainers. Adult or child.

Honestly is no wonder some people get in debt if they think they have to spend £50 on trainers let alone £100.

Sad

I know it doesn't fit your stereotype but I am not in debt

Jowo_2

PasturesNew wrote: »

£870 .... is £202/week.
Take off the £65 she'd get as a single person and that's £137/week, or £68/week per child. Do they really get that much? Blimey.

Yes, I ran it through the Entitled To website just to double check my friend wasn't exaggerating.

it's something like £65 Income support, £100 child tax credits and then around £35 child benefit for the 2 kids. At that time last year, I believe that receipt of Child Support Allowance from the absent parent had an impact on means tested benefits but the rules changed last Dec so it is now ignored as income. As the modest CSA she received is now additional to the £200 it's more like £230 per week in her hand now (the equivalent to earning a taxable income of around £8 or £9 per hour). When her rent and council tax of a £1000+ plus per month is factored in, this takes it up the equivalent of earning £15 per hour - almost three times the national minimum wage.

I'm not a fan of the excesses and bias of the Daily Mail and it's important to understand she's merely claiming her entitlement - plus it's hardly her fault that her rent and council tax that comes out of the public purse is so high.

But this does show why the current benefits system is unsustainable - single parents, of which there are hundreds of thousands, if not a million plus households, will reap equivalent or more in benefits than many can ever hope to earn in employment and have no requirement to seek work until their youngest turns 7 (used to be 11, I think) which can legitimately keep them out of the employment market for decades.

When they do return to employment, they then lose precious family time, have travel fares to work, may have child care costs on top and will have to start paying towards their rent and council tax.

lynzpower

Jowo wrote: »

How about this for alternative sources of info - my landlord friend in East Sussex discovered a discarded bank statement from the previous tenant, a single mum of two kids, which indicated that she received £870 per month in benefits on top of her rent being paid in full (then £650, now the LHA rate is closer to £950), plus full council tax rebate (£100 per month).

This household is getting the equivalent of 23k per year in benefits which would require a taxable earned income of around £28k for this woman to be fully independent from the public purse, unlikely unless she is an experienced or skilled graduate or manage calibre.

I understand why the Daily Mail headlines can add little to some debates apart from hysteria.

But we actually do live in a society that wants people to consider employment as the best route out of poverty but pays more out to certain households than they can ever achieve in employment for many complex reasons.

Did the landlord put the rent up from 650 to 950?

If so, can you explain why?

Jowo_2

lynzpower wrote: »

Did the landlord put the rent up from 650 to 950?

If so, can you explain why?

No, it was leased to Brighton and Hove council for a 3 year period for them to house their own tenants off their waiting list (private sector leasing). At the outset of the tenancy, the council agreed a rent of about £640 pcm fixed for the 3 year period with the landlord.

By the end of the 3 year lease the LHA rate is £840 (not £950 as I mis-reported in my previous post as I've just rechecked the LHA direct website).

The £190 increase is simply the difference between what the council reckoned the rental rate was worth in 2006 and what it currently is under the Local Housing Allowance. It perhaps shows why the cost of Housing Benefit/LHA has doubled over the last decade and is heading north of £20 billion.

Though my friend is as far away from a Daily Mail reader as you could hope, they would not renew because Brighton and Hove council did not adequately manage the maintenance or their tenants as they were contractually obliged. The property was returned 4 months late, half-trashed and the tenants repeatedly upset the neighbours with their anti-social behaviour.

lynzpower

Was the 4 months late due to having to take the legal possession steps?

I guess he will have no way of knowing whether his new tenants ( if he takes them) will be in receipt of LHA anyway now??

Jowo_2

lynzpower wrote: »

Was the 4 months late due to having to take the legal possession steps?

I guess he will have no way of knowing whether his new tenants ( if he takes them) will be in receipt of LHA anyway now??

No, the council hadn't taken any legal possession steps, they told my landlord friend that the local court generally didn't award possession back to the council when children were involved because of the Human Rights Act, rarely granting a Possession Order unless the council could demonstrate they'd done their best to rehouse them.

The council had served the tenant with adequate notice many months before the end of the lease but their poor admin or perhaps tenant intransigence meant that they did not offer onward accommodation to their tenant until after the property was supposed to be handed back and the tenant turned it down as unsuitable. (I imagine they had to bribe their nuisance tenant out of the property, rewarding her for ruining the fixtures, fittings and decor and aggravating the neighbours, as my friend was preparing to take the council to court for breaching the lease and it was escalated to the Head of Housing - that's my Daily Mail interpretation...).

Yes, the tenants were probably in receipt of Housing Benefit/LHA since it was operated by their temporary housing unit, therefore was probably used for interim/emergency accommodation for those they had a legal obligation to house, such as newly released prisoners, the homeless, victims of domestic abuse.

lynzpower

Interesting thanks Jowo.

I used to work in LG a few moons ago and was always interested in the Housing side of things. Always without exception tenants were told to hang on in there till possession took place. Interesting about the HRA issue, Ill google - had no idea HRA could be used in this way ( is degrading treatment clause ?)

Just been reading about the Empty Homes Possession orders again to refresh up.

Seems a good tweak to this could be to allow councils to take orders against properties that are up for sale if they have been sat on the market for an inordinate amount of time. ( eg 18months?)

NO idea just a suggestion. At the least this would mean that vendors have to consider dropping the AP for the property "against the clock" and this might bring the market down. I guess this wouldn't be a duty, more a power, as you wouldnt want councils to have to buy in stock where there is limited demand on their waiting lists.

Someone needs to do something about the astronomical price of housing in this country and throwing more money at it is trying to keep bubble inflated against all odds.

Jowo_2

lynzpower wrote: »

I used to work in LG a few moons ago and was always interested in the Housing side of things. Always without exception tenants were told to hang on in there till possession took place. Interesting about the HRA issue, Ill google - had no idea HRA could be used in this way ( is degrading treatment clause ?)

The HRA implications relate only to action performed by the local council against their tenants and is not applicable to private landlords - private landlords will always be given possession of the property on a mandatory basis by the judge if the S21 notice to quit or S8 is correctly served. Remember in this particular case, the council was actually the landlord - they were the ones who issued the AST to their own tenants.

My landlord friend took legal advice and it was verified that local authorities can struggle to evict council tenants on HRA grounds.

I am aware that the local council will tell tenants in private property owned by a private landlord who are served notice to ignore it until the landlord gets a possession order - this is part of their gatekeeping function to reduce demand on their services, namely that they won't act until the tenant is virtually homeless rather than when they are just initially served notice.

However, in this particular case, though the council's management and administration of the entire tenancy was abysmal, they would not have instructed the tenant to stay there as they are obligated by the lease to return the property with vacant possession, plus obligated by the law to find them onward accommodation. Basically, they were sloppy at regaining possession and rehousing her and the tenant essentially refused to budge. Perhaps they informed her that if she turned down another property without good reason, she would be considered to have made herself homeless should they bring it to court and the judge grants a rare Possession Order to them.

Note - Apologies to the OP for any digression. On the one hand, I am keen to show that there are real structural problems with the benefit system and it is unhelpful to benefit bash the recipients. On the other, I am clearly demonstrating one of the key issues in the shortage of social housing - namely that private landlords end up housing the type of vulnerable tenant that isn't really suited to private accommodation.

lynzpower

Note - Apologies to the OP for any digression. On the one hand, I am keen to show that there are real structural problems with the benefit system and it is unhelpful to benefit bash the recipients. On the other, I am clearly demonstrating one of the key issues in the shortage of social housing - namely that private landlords end up housing the type of vulnerable tenant that isn't really suited to private accommodation.

Have to agree wholeheartedly with this.

Yet again, here we see the "oh so wonderful" private sector filling a role which should be performed by government, here we can see a well meaning entrepreneur filling a state gap and getting "mucked over". You cannot expect a thousand LLs to have the knowledge/skills/values to support vulnerable people, nor must they IMV. However, OTOH there is a taxpayer demand that if you are receiving taxpayers money for a service then you should be providing that service in line with what the government ( local or otherwise) needs.

No doubt that LL will demand a higher rate the next time it is rented out to compensate for the hardship and losses theyve incurred.

Some would say a lose-lose situation.