Got a letter from my landlord this morning...

looby75

alasia do you see a lone parent advisor? The only reason I ask is because from the figures you have quoted it's clear that they are taking far too much from your benefits....I'm currently on a course set up for lone parents who are trying to get back into work, one of the things they covered on the first day was a benefits check and the covered the amounts that can be deducted, we were told it can be no more than 20% of the benefits you receive. If your deductions are more than that amount then you need to speak to the Lone parent advisor who will sort it out for you.

alasia

I know,thats what I mean; I get £40.50 per week in income support, paid fortnightly - so £81 a fortnight.

I stated this in a previous post; theyre deducting what they are entitled to, nothing more, nothing less

looby75

alasia wrote: »

I know,thats what I mean; I get £40.50 per week in income support, paid fortnightly - so £81 a fortnight.

I stated this in a previous post; theyre deducting what they are entitled to, nothing more, nothing less

20% of £65 (about the current rate of IS) is £13 so if they are taking £24 a week off you they are taking too much

and do you get your CTC weekly or monthly, if it's monthly you can ask to get them weekly if you think it will be easier to budget that way (I'm hopeless doing things monthly! When I used to work I had 2 accounts so I could put a weekly "wage" into my account )

alasia

No I was supposed to be getting £100 plus a few pence a fortnight, so the amount they are taking is right.

I already get my ctc and cb weekly,which is why I put £50 a week towards bills and my last food bill cost me £38, so I am slowly getting that down

I know how to budget, but what I cant work out is how much to pay the landlord - I cant give him every penny as the kids are growing quickly and at some point will need shoes or clothes etc.

And yes, I know you can get these things for free but they may not be available the week I need them, in which case if its an urgent requirement I will have to buy them. So I need to budget to have a bit of money spare a week (even if its just £5) to cover for such things,or emergencymilk etc if we run out.

I am trying to balance the above, with getting the LL paid iff as quickly as possible, while also saving for a deposit on a new property.

looby75

alasia wrote: »

No I was supposed to be getting £100 plus a few pence a fortnight, so the amount they are taking is right.

the standard rate of IS for a single person is £65.45, so that is £130.45 a fortnight....so if you were only getting £100 plus a few pence each fortnight then they were already deducting something BEFORE they started taking more off you, leaving you with the £81 a fortnight.

The max they should be taking off you is £13 (and a few pence) so you SHOULD be getting a minimum of £52 a week (give of take a few pence) They ARE deducting too much from your IS.

clutton_2

""I know how to budget""- no you dont otherwise you would not be in this mess..

another set of

"yes but" responses...

i give up

Paul_the_Painter

OK, back again.

You are NOT getting the correct benefit payment for income support. The figure you are quoting.

£100 plus a few pence a fortnight

Is the 2009-2010 rate for a person aged between 18 and 25. You are probably remembering this figure as you were quoted it when you originally claimed, and at that time you were between 18 and 25., and it was the 2009-2010 benefit year.

HOWEVER

1. You are now over 25
2. You are a lone parent - and were at the time - or at least for part of the time you wre claiming in the 2009-2010 benefit year.

Reading what you wrote at 10.10am. This is what has happened

You started to claim as someone with a partner, this means you were only entitled to the lower rate (£50.95/week)as you were under 25 AT THAT TIME and HAD A PARTNER.

Your partner left

You borrowed the money for a budgeting loan

Your benefits started being deducted the 20% giving you £40ish/week


This is what SHOULD have happened

You started to claim as someone living with a partner and get £50/week This is correct

Your partner left - Your benefit should have risen to the rate of around £64.30/week (This is because as a lone parent between tha ages of 18 and 25 you get the standard rate)

You borrowed the money for a budgeting loan no problem there

Your benefits were deducted by 20%..They should have also reassesed the 20% rate - it is very high standard higest rate is 12%

OK let's stop worrying about the past, and try and put it right.

I'm going to get back to questions I'm afraid. Well two

At what point did the benefits people know you were a lone parent?

How much was your budgeting loan?

They can't be expected to guess, but I would imagine they would have been told you were a lone parent at the time you needed the budgeting loan. Let's call that the 1st of March, at that point they made an error and from that point, they should have been paying you the higher rate (64.30) minus the loan repayment (which I would expect to stay the same is cash terms)

This is difference of about £13.35/week

This has been happening for 69 weeks

They have underpaid you about £900

They have underpaid you about £900

In the 2010 benefit year the difference has gone up to £13.60

Even at the absolute worst, that is they refuse to accept they made a mistake, or were never told you were now a lone parent. You are entitled to 3 months backdating for various reasons including communication difficulties.

If there was an official error then benefit arrears may go back to whenever that decision was made. Official error can include:

• the decision maker failed to take relevant information into account, or
• written or documentary evidence was not passed to the decision maker by another officer, or
• an error in law (but not if it were found to be an error in law due to another later test case)

Income Support and Jobseekers Allowance
can be backdated 1 month for administrative reasons; or 3 months for other specified reasons (e.g. difficulty in communicating, illness or disability).

3 months is 13 weeks which at the new rates is about £175 - which should come in handy.


OK next thing...

You've been paying back about £10/week, you have now paid back just under £700 - how much did you borrow?

OK now let's deal with the rent.

I think you actually owe very little, and your landlord knows very little (if anything) about the housing benefit system. You say your claim was suspended, this sounds very strange, and unlikely, unless there were outside factors you are not telling us about. What you and him both need to understand is that the benefit system pays housing benefit in arrears, but that almost all private contracts charge (and you should pay) rent in advance.

Imagine you are starting a tenancy on the 1st of June, and you pay on the 1st of every month until you end the tenancy and move out on the 31st May. You last rent payment would be on the 1st May.

If instead midway through the tenancy you start to claim Housing Benefit, the landlord/you doesn't get the rent money until the end of the month. So it looks like you are a month in arrears to the landlord. BUT when you leave the property on the 31st May he will get a payment for the month of May - on the 31st May.

I have simplified the above!!!

This gets rid of £460 of the arrears - as he will recieve the £460 into his account around the time you leave the property.

You now only need to address the roughly £440 left.

I would ignore your £200 deposit - I would never normally advocate this, but you seem like a straightforward person trying her best - he may well be honest, but he is frankly an amateur. If you paid him back to the level you should to have no arrears, he would probably still think you had due to the housing benefit issue, then at the time you eventually left, he would refuse to give you your deposit back as he thought you still had arrears. Then when you were gone he'd get the last payment from the Housing Benefit - do you in honestly think he would be back in touch to give you your deposit and the OVERPAYMENT you had now made?? I don't - the chap is an amateur.

I would pay him £240 over the next few weeks, try and explain about the HB being paid in arrears, and say to take the rest out of your deposit when you move out.

It's been a long post! The benefit people may not give you the £900 without a fight, they may not wish to admit error. Your landlord may be awkward, but to be honest he sounds like a reasonable man, who is an amateur landlord, and has got a bit out of his depth.

1. Go to the jobcentre with the information above
2. Talk to your landlord about the the fact that HB is not paid in advance but in arrears - he can check this himself
3. Get your benefit uprated to take account of your new (correct) rate of benefit.
4. Find out how much is left on your budgeting loan

Good luck

By the way - for anyone out there who thinks I'm some "claim everything" sort of guy, I've never worked in the public sector - and I've never made a benefit claim in my life, I actually think for a lot of people too much is paid, and they should find a job - I just don't happen to think it applies in this case, and I think alasia will eventually join the ranks of the working single mother - or working married mother - probably sooner than she has to.

p.s. I think there may also be an issue with HB being worked out on a weekly basis, and your landlord recieving 4 weeks at time rather than 1 month - the difference is about £38 a month between the 2 figures. But address the big issues first - that one is really an issue between him and the HB people, and will be addressed when you reach the end of the tenancy.

looby75

Paul_the_Painter wrote: »

Your benefits were deducted by 20%..They should have also reassesed the 20% rate - it is very high standard higest rate is 12%

Not wanting to detract from you fantastic advice but just earlier this week I was told on a lone parent based course the standard rate is 20% and you have no right to appeal that have we been wrongly advised? (I have no deductions from my IS but have in the past and my sister had load of deductions that left her with next to nothing)

Paul_the_Painter

Well I do try looby! now your local benefit office may have it's own targets to meet - Ive no idea - or even if they have such things - and there is also the assumption that all loans should be paid back within 104 weeks, so that if you are borrowing a lot that may have kicked in.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/specialist-guides/technical-guidance/sb16-a-guide-to-the-social/budgeting-loans/

is where I got my information and it states

There are three standard repayment rates which apply. These rates depend on your existing financial commitments.
The rates are equivalent to 12 per cent, 10 per cent and 5 per cent of your weekly

Also this bit may come come in handy

Budgeting loans

If you are having difficulty making the repayments

If you cannot make the repayments at the rate originally agreed we may be able to help, for example by extending the repayment period to reduce your payments. You should contact your Jobcentre Plus office for advice. If you are aged 60 or over, you may wish to seek advice from the Pension Service.

Also this paragraph sets out repayment rates, and what benefits it can be deucted from

Repayment at 12 per cent rate

If you have no other debts to repay, you will be expected to pay an amount equal to 12 per cent of your weekly

Repayment at 10 per cent rate

If you have some other payments to make from your benefit, such as rent or fuel arrears, the repayment rate may be lowered to 10 per cent of your weekly

Repayment at 5 per cent rate

If your commitments are larger (for example, you have higher payments to make from your benefit or are repaying several personal debts) the repayment rate will normally be 5 per cent of your weekly

• Income Support available income (and including Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit where appropriate)
• or Jobseeker’s Allowance available income (and including Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit where appropriate)
• or Employment and Support Allowance available income (and including Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit where appropriate).
• or Pension Credit (and including Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit where appropriate)

this is where the 20% maximum is mentioned

Non-standard repayment terms

We may offer you either the full amount of your new loan or a lower amount of new loan at a non standard repayment rate. This rate can be any weekly rate, up to a maximum of 20 per cent of your Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance (income-related) or your Pension Credit (including Child Benefit or Child Tax Credit where appropriate) excluding housing costs. Again we may give you choices, based on recovery of your total debt in 104 weeks (2 years).
You may receive up to three different offer choices, from which you can choose the best one for you

The above is from the Dept. of Work and Pensions website

Sounds like someone is spinning you a line

Paul_the_Painter

Just thought to mention that the reason I/we can seem like we are being nosy, is that getting all RELEVANT information, can be like getting blood out of a stone!

Very often people will think they are telling you everything you need to know, but they are not. They honestly think they are, but what they THINK is relevant, and what is actually relevant, can be very different.

For instance from now knowing the dates of alasia's initial benefit claim, and the date of her break up/abandonment by her ex-partner, we have now established that she is getting the wrong level of income support. We know this as her circumstance have changed, but her benefits have not.

Who would of thought that splitting up from your ex 16 months ago would affect your rent arrears today? - But in a way it has.

If anyone else is reading also try for ACCURATE figures, as they can tell people a lot - to give an example someone says

"Help rent £400/month, but Landlord only getting £360/month from council" could lead to all sorts of talk about rents in the local area, cost of property, greedy landlord etc.

but if someone says

"Help rent £395/month but landlord only getting £181.68 every 2 weeks from council" a bit of maths shows that the council is paying exactly the correct rate, but every 2 weeks rather than £395/month and there is no problem.