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

terryw

The council did not have the view - pay it or we will evict you. This is nonsense.

The council may have had the view - please pay the arrears of rent outstanding by some arrangement if necessary or we will issue proceedings for a court order for possession. This they did and the court ordered repossession.

Wee_Willy_Harris

donny909 wrote: »

What, even if the act does'nt actually mention liability for rent arrears?. Surely in which case the debt of a deceased person is therefor the same as in other cases in that only the estate is liable?. Or is the word "may" taken out of context in that it could be said the successor is only requested to take on the debt if it cant be forced on the successor directly as part of the housing act?.

I dont mean to sound like I'm grasping at straws here, but there can be a number of ways to interprate the housing act.

Indeed. And not knowing the full details makes interpretation all the more difficult. However, the nuts and bolts of it are that you succeed the tenancy, ie take it over with all the existing rights and responsibilities intact. These rights could include the right to buy (which may not be available to new tenants), and the responsibilities could include any rent arrears owed on the tenancy. It's swings and roundabouts. Sadly, you didn't stay long enough to take advantage of any of the preserved rights succession may have brought, but that may not mitigate your liability for any rent arrears owing on the account.

No-one on here, and I suspect that includes you at the moment, knows the full story, so your first course of action should be to understand the councils position. Then you will know what you are fighting. I'm afraid the only people who can tell you what the council position might be is the council. All we are doing at the moment is playing "what if".

donny909

terryw wrote: »

The council did not have the view - pay it or we will evict you. This is nonsense.

The council may have had the view - please pay the arrears of rent outstanding by some arrangement if necessary or we will issue proceedings for a court order for possession. This they did and the court ordered repossession.

Well they did pretty much refuse to explain there side properly or show where within the tenancy it says I have to accept the debt either before as a condition of signing or after signing. They were evasive and there was never anyone within the correct department qualified on policy to deal with me in about the entire month of me asking. Yet they always found time to send me a letter out asking for the money.

I know this is all guess work right now (to what I can do\liability) and I'll be the first to admit I may not have recalled 100% of everything as posted as it may have been at the time it happened, but I have come by some very interesting points in the housing acts 1985 & 88 that will be highly usefull if and when I can get the details off the council for clarification and get an appointment with them.

And I am greatfull for all the input on here also and I do hope to accelerate sorting it by collecting the info off them in person if I can during the next week if they can find it all.

neverdespairgirl

You need to find out the facts from the council before anyone can really help. Too many ifs and buts and maybes.

donny909

A slight update, I finally got to speak to someone from the council today. And in all honesty it is starting to look like either they dont know what to do or simply dont want to comit themselfs to giving me any real responce in case they give me the wrong infomation and it might be more harmfull to the council.

It was the housing\rent department I spoke to and after 10 mins of beeng put on hold they finally gave me a number (cant call till tomorrow as closed for the day) for an overpayments department for ex tennants.

The housing department informs me they cant really deal with it as they only really deal with rent issues!!!. And the only department they have is an overpayments department. But the woman would not have it that it was the rent department who sent out my dads overpayment bill and put it onto the rent. They also dont seem to want to give me copies of the tenancy aggreement etc and still pretty much refuse to explain why I'd have had my dads overpayment put onto me in rent arrears.

The woman obviously had information as when she was aksing me questions she was confirming them on a computer.

Now if as I think the overpayments department will refer me back to the housing\rent department as it was they who put the overpayment onto my tenancy and went to court. Who therefor should probably deal with me seeing as they want to refer me to an overpayments department when it was the rent\hgousing department who took all the action?.

And what option will I then have if nobody is willing to provide the tenancy details etc?

RAS

Hi

Have you spojken to your local councillor? They might be able to sort this out. Most do a weekly surgery which you could go to.

And if you need documents do a Subject Access request and they have 40 days top produce everything in your file.

donny909

RAS wrote: »

Hi

Have you spojken to your local councillor? They might be able to sort this out. Most do a weekly surgery which you could go to.

And if you need documents do a Subject Access request and they have 40 days top produce everything in your file.

My mum said about going to the councillor but thats a no go seeing as I'm currently in a different county to where I had the problems. And as far as I know councillors only deal with there own area?.

Anyways, been onto the council and spoke to the overpayments department they state pretty much what I thought they would in that they only deal with overpayments and from there point of view they have acted correctly in that if there is an overpayment they ask for it back onto the account\tennancy of the person (my dad). But even though I confirmed details to who I am and who my dad was they refused to state how much overpayment they had asked for back at that time.

When asked why therefor was it put onto my tenancy after I took it over as at that point it was not my dads account\tenancy?. They said they dont know and I'd have to take it up with housing?.

Housing have said they are the wrong department to deal with it as they dont deal with overpayments (can you see where this is going lol) and that I have to speak to the housing benefits department. Seem they put me through to the department I left before going to housing. Unless housing benefits and overpayments are the same department!.

I'm then told that nobody there knows how to deal with the issue and they will look into it and phone me back. Still no call back and dont know if they will bother.

But to me it's clearly an housing issue as it was the housing department who would have gone to court. Housing are blaiming overpayments but I feel overpayments are probably correctly stating that it's not there area and they only asked for an overpayment to be put onto my dads account. But the housing department must surely know (reguardless of any overpayment query from overpayments) about policy and the housing act to have known for sure weather or not they could or should have imposed my dads debt onto me?. That would surely be a basic issue they would automatically know about?. Or at least if they were unsure thery should have found out before they acted.

This is almost as bad as the hassles I had with them at the time lol.

terryw

Donny,

Phoning up about a matter from years ago will not give immediate answers.

You really need to send a reasoned letter to expect a reasoned answer to go any further.

donny909

terryw wrote: »

Donny,

Phoning up about a matter from years ago will not give immediate answers.

You really need to send a reasoned letter to expect a reasoned answer to go any further.

Yes I can see that terryw, but wont putting things in writing raising the same points and questions as over the phone be fairly pointless unless I can get confirmation and admition of which department I'm supposed to be dealing with?. To be honest once\if they can decide who I should be dealing with I'd sooner have a face to face meeting than deal with letters over a much longer period. That way we can get thing sorted better.

But it's almost like 2 issues here either they know about liability of over payment debt like in my case or they dont?. And whilst they are more than happy to start taking payments off me (so assuming they have the details to hand to know what they want me to pay)they however do not seem keen on showing where and how there arrears come to the the amount it does. For which can any single person really be expected to pay a bill unless they are shown how they owe the amount they do?. I'm getting the impression each department is looking at different dated figgures.

UPDATE: Got a call back

The housing benefit department are now trying to say that the housing benefit is paid in full in advance so they were within there rights to ask for it back for a period where my dad had received it upto the period to the end of year after he died?. They also said that the overpayment goes back onto my dads account\tenancy and if the tenancy had changed hands in that period before they asked for it back then thats ok. HB department are also saying all this is nothing to do with housing laws or the housing act at all but is in fact a benefits related issue only. Asking them therefor why I was expected to pay rent and a housing benefits repayments and why within 2 weeks of signing the tenancy there was a statement of rent account covering a period I never had the tenancy for detailing hb arrears and shown they had been put onto my tenancy gave me a "we dont know" answer.

But that dont make sence either as they also stated that the account shows that there was no overpayment of housing benefit on the tenancy at ther point the tenancy was repossesed.

Housing is now closed so cant call. But is any of this starting to make any sence?. To put things in a more clear way:

HB department are saying they can ask for over payments back and it's nothing to do with housing laws or the housing act but a simple benefits issue.

HB department also says the records shows there is no HB debt on the account as that was wiped after my died?.

Housing did semi comfirm they did and was (as I also recall this part 100%) an over payment of housing benefit put onto my tenancy soon after it was signed. But are saying they dont deal with that side of things.

HB overpayments was almost certainly used as a point to goto court for repossetion & after that was granted it looks as if housing benefit over payment was wiped off the account?.

IF the hb overpayment was part used as a reason to go to court for repossetion and after that they MAY have wiped that bit off the tenancy account, wander what that means?