Applying for council housing when there is a previous re-possetion?

donny909

Wee_Willy_Harris wrote: »

You claimed to have been living with your father when you weren't, and in so doing fraudulantly succeeded to his tenancy. Now that this fraud has come back to bite you, you seem to want to accuse the council of fraud. Were you on your fathers HB claim? Were you on your partners HB claim? Were you on any HB claim? In fact, were you ever entitled to HB anywhere? I still have absolutely no idea where this HB debt came from or why HB felt the award was wrong/fraudulant. Perhaps if that was established, your liability could be better examined. However, it may equally be true that your various twists and convolutions may be at the route of the issue.

Not exacally a helfull post or did you just have a bad day yesterday?. Either that or you have a very serious problem about some people getting housing benefits?. Or prehaps you have different opinions on subjects depending on what mood you are in at whatever time you come onto these forums?. Or are you simply being a little sarcastic and I cant see that?

In any case I dont really recall saying I never lived with my dad. What I said was that I spent very little time at my dads for the last 3 months before he died and that from a certain view point I could have been classed as not living there for those 3 months. I was still paying my dad my share of what the rent was. Weather or not you class that as not living there is your business. But it's no different than if you (or anyone) had a place, got with someone and spent most of your time eith them. As long as rent is being payed it probably makes little difference?.

And how is it a fraud that has come back to haunt me?, I have comitted no fraud at or from where my dad lived?. It was my dad who comitted the fraud. I had been paying him rent, if he chose to not pass on that rent to the council or to inform them of a change of circumstances then I cant see how I'm then responsable. My accusation against the council is that they had been informed over 2 weeks before I had the tenancy that I'd been living there with him and weather on not I could take over the tenancy. On at least 2 occasions they told me there was no debt on my dads tenancy and there was no problem taking it over. Yet within 3 days of signing they sent out a letter saying about housing benefit overpayment and they wanted me to pay it back by putting it onto my tenancy in the form of rent arrears.

I would assume that either way seeing as the council had no record of my dad having informed them of my living with him that I was not on his housing benefit claim. But I cant exacally find that out off him now to be 100% sure. Also I never got about to applying for housing benefit for the short period I was there. So no I never had housing benefit in any form when I lived with my dad. When I left my dads place to move in with my partner that was when I went onto her housing benefit claim as it's now a joint claim like everything else. And this is and has been the only housing benefit I have claimed.

I still have absolutely no idea where this HB debt came from or why HB felt the award was wrong/fraudulant. Perhaps if that was established, your liability could be better examined

Thats is an interesting part of your post in that why HB felt the award was wrong or fraudulent. What I mean is that the council would have assumingly been paid the HB from DWP or whatever department deals with HB (or does the council pay themselfs the HB from another department). So would any overpayment of HB have to have been asked back from the HB housing benefit department rather than the councils rent department directly?

The HB award was assumingly felt to be fraudulent\wrong due to my dad not having informed the council of a change of circumstances. But surely that means the original HB applicant (my dad) was given the wrong HB award and not the tenancy?.

Dont know if that helps to examine my liability?


What also gets me is I think I'd be right to assume I could never claim housing benefit for a period of which I was never on the\any tenancy as that I think to still be the case today (from talking to a friend last night about the issue). So in turn how can someone be held liable for a HB overpayment when they had no liable period of qualifying for HB?. Could the council have known this and decided to say nothing untill I signed the tenancy hoping I'd not be in a fighting mood to challenge that since my dad had just died?

terryw

If housing benefit is/was claimed by a council tenant this would be sent by the HB department direct to the Rent Department. The HB Department in turn claim most if not all of this back from central government. If it subsequently becomes known for whatever reason that the HB was claimed and paid incorrectly then the HB Department will reclaim it (probably) from the person to whom it was paid - in this case the Rent Department. The rent will then show as being in arrears.

I am guessing that this is what happened here.

The average HB clerical worker in those days was far too busy to even think about making your life difficult hence your final remark about council malpractice has a very low probability.

terryw

OP,

I think you will find that in the notification for the tenancy succession and in the new agreement itself, it is quite clear that the successor is responsible for any arrears of rent. You can check this with your council - if you no longer have the paperwork, I am sure that the council will provide this.

Here is a link to the rules of many council which confirm this.
http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?fr=ytff1-sunm&p=If%20take%20a%20tenancy%20over%20by%20succession%20are%20you%20responsible%20for%20the%20rent%20arrears%20of%20the%20deceased%20persons&ei=UTF-8&type=

bryanb

Seems to me that if the council has obtained a posession order against you it must be declared. Whether you received it is not really relevant. You can find out if such an order has been made by applying to the court in the area concerned.

donny909

terryw wrote: »

OP,

I think you will find that in the notification for the tenancy succession and in the new agreement itself, it is quite clear that the successor is responsible for any arrears of rent. You can check this with your council - if you no longer have the paperwork, I am sure that the council will provide this.

Here is a link to the rules of many council which confirm this.
http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?fr=ytff1-sunm&p=If%20take%20a%20tenancy%20over%20by%20succession%20are%20you%20responsible%20for%20the%20rent%20arrears%20of%20the%20deceased%20persons&ei=UTF-8&type=

Successors do not legally inherit arrears unless the previous tenancy was joint. In this case, as joint tenants are "jointly" responsible it should be explained that any arrears continue with the tenancy.
All other successors should be requested to take responsibility for arrears and sign an agreement to this effect. If, however, at a future date Court action for arrears against the successor is commenced

these previous arrears cannot form part of the claim. Particulars of claim would have to be based on arrears that have accrued since the date of succession.

That is a quote from one on the results from the link above. My dads tenancy was never a joint tenancy so if the above info is correct then by law they cannot and should not have ever have done what they did.

terryw

I think that this has been taken out of context. Please provide a link - preferably to the council involved.

donny909

terryw wrote: »

I think that this has been taken out of context. Please provide a link - preferably to the council involved.

http://www.cosmopolitanhousing.co.uk/inc_docs/Variation_of_Tenancy_Policy_2007.pdf
it's on page 4, but realised this is for a housing assosiation so it might be different for council?.

terryw

donny909 wrote: »

http://www.cosmopolitanhousing.co.uk/inc_docs/Variation_of_Tenancy_Policy_2007.pdf
it's on page 4, but realised this is for a housing assosiation so it might be different for council?.

You would be far better to check for a council preferably the one involved.

Wee_Willy_Harris

donny909 wrote: »

That is a quote from one on the results from the link above. My dads tenancy was never a joint tenancy so if the above info is correct then by law they cannot and should not have ever have done what they did.

It depends if he was an assured tenant......

"Because succession does not involve the creation of a new tenancy any notices served on the
old tenant continue to apply to the successor, who also assumes responsibility for any rent

arrears."

terryw

Willie,

I agree with you..It is extremely unlikely that the dad was an assured tenant. But this is bye the bye.
Donnie needs to trawl through the links for council rather than HA links.

Donnie must do some of the work himself. We can only but assist.

This should really have been sorted at the time. Advice could have obtained from any number of sources (CAB, Legal Aid etc) not now where presumably some sort of action has been taken to exclude him from the property.

bw