Tenant with housing benefit

Morglin

lfckerry wrote: »

Hi
ive posted before about problems with the housing office sorting out my tenents claim.
Well she has been in the house over 9 weeks and they have still not sorted her claim so therefore i am not getting any rent. i filled in some paperwork with her before xmas to get an interim payment directly to me but i have yet to receive this. Does anyone know how long these payments usually take? i dont know how much it would be for either. the whole thing is just shocking. how can they expect landlords to keep letting tenants live in a house when no rent is being paid. it really does put me off renting to people on housing benefit.
im stuck now as what to do. on one hand i feel sorry for the tenant and i know its not her fault but at the end of the day it is her duty to pay me the rent and i do have a mortgage to pay. i havent given her any demands yet as ive just been waiting but it cant go on much longer. its just frustrating because she is a good tenant apart from the lack of rent lol

Some Housing Benefit departments are chroncially slow and inefficient - particularly those that have been hived off to a certain privately run firm (who I'd better not name).

Some councils have departments that help private landlords and those renting privately to get through this system quicker, so that might be worth checking on.

Other than that, all you and the tenant can do is to pressure them - I would ask the tenant to go down to the office and tell them she is frigtened of being evicted, because her landlord, understandably, needs the rent she should be paying.

Your tenant can see how much rent allowance she will get by entering the details here:

http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx

Lin

morganslv

lfckerry wrote: »

well ive just spoke to the housing office,they are still dealing with claims from october. the forms i filled in were only to get the first payment directly to me as it will be a lump some of arrears. going to be a few more weeks yet. i really dont know what to do

Are you sure you want payments to come to you?

What if it turns out your tenant has some secret money invested somewhere? If this is found out about and they lied on their HBenefit application then YOU have to pay back all the rent you received. You could then chase your tenant for it but they will prob do a runner.

lfckerry

its only the first payment that will come to me as a lump sum of arrears.
tenant is going to the housing office today so i will see what she says.
Geenie- there was a few weeks before the tenant moved in, she got her deposit from the housing i think or some sort of loan,im not sure. i did get references and a garuantor. guess the mistake i made was not getting any rent up front but i stupidly assumed the housing would be sorted within a few weeks.

Geenie

lfckerry wrote: »

its only the first payment that will come to me as a lump sum of arrears.
tenant is going to the housing office today so i will see what she says.
Geenie- there was a few weeks before the tenant moved in, she got her deposit from the housing i think or some sort of loan,im not sure. i did get references and a garuantor. guess the mistake i made was not getting any rent up front but i stupidly assumed the housing would be sorted within a few weeks.

Don't beat yourself up about it Ifckerry. Things like this come with being a LL. I am sure once the money comes through, you will be pleased with your tenant, but you will now know that if you ever have a HB tenant again, what you need to have in place before handing over the keys, as your area is obviously very slow paying up.

Once the money does come through, try and retain some of the income, so you have a buffer for things like this in the future, and I would advise joining a LL Association. It is not that much a year, and the support and advice is invaluable. Also you can put the cost of membership against tax. Good luck and keep us posted as to when you finally get the money through.

peainapod

BITTERANDTWISTED couldn't be more wrong, as usual he's painting your tenant with the same brush as everyone else on housing benefit. When I moved into a house and made my claim it took the council 6 months, yes 6 MONTHS to sort it out. I rang them every single day for that 6 months and was told a different story. I went down to the offices countless times, posted everything that needed to be posted with recorded delivery etc, basically I couldn't have done more and they would still come up with a new story why they were delayed. You will be back paid all the rent, don't have her evicted, if she's on benefit she probably doesnt have a lot of money and this isn't her fault, its the council making us on benefits look bad yet again. I know there's a lot of people on benefits who would mess around landlords and not pay rent but we're not all like that.
I suggest doing everything you can at your end (any paperwork etc) and take it to the office in person and get a receipt for it, ALWAYS ask them for a receipt for anything you hand over. They're not so quick to pull a fast one when you tell them you've got a receipt. Another thing I used to do was keep a notebook and write the date and name of the person you speak to every single time you ring, and what they said. I have a 10 A4 page long story by the end of my ordeal ! Keep calling them all the time if I were you. Good luck to you ! and your tenant as its probably stressing her out too ! Hope this helps

Geenie

peainapod wrote: »

BITTERANDTWISTED couldn't be more wrong, as usual he's painting your tenant with the same brush as everyone else on housing benefit. When I moved into a house and made my claim it took the council 6 months, yes 6 MONTHS to sort it out. I rang them every single day for that 6 months and was told a different story. I went down to the offices countless times, posted everything that needed to be posted with recorded delivery etc, basically I couldn't have done more and they would still come up with a new story why they were delayed. You will be back paid all the rent, don't have her evicted, if she's on benefit she probably doesnt have a lot of money and this isn't her fault, its the council making us on benefits look bad yet again. I know there's a lot of people on benefits who would mess around landlords and not pay rent but we're not all like that.
I suggest doing everything you can at your end (any paperwork etc) and take it to the office in person and get a receipt for it, ALWAYS ask them for a receipt for anything you hand over. They're not so quick to pull a fast one when you tell them you've got a receipt. Another thing I used to do was keep a notebook and write the date and name of the person you speak to every single time you ring, and what they said. I have a 10 A4 page long story by the end of my ordeal ! Keep calling them all the time if I were you. Good luck to you ! and your tenant as its probably stressing her out too ! Hope this helps

peainapod, no LL would wait 6 months to get any rent. Yours must have been a one off!!!

peainapod

He wasn't nice, just very rich and very lazy lol, I think out of the whole 6 months he waited (bless him) he only rang me a handful of times for an update. I think he knew I wasn't messing him around and that it wasn't my fault so he was patient !

sandraroffey

my benefit claim for housing etc took 4 months.

all back rent will be paid but only when the council deem it to be done. i just dont understand how, in the days of computers etc, a claim can take so long.

do be aware, though, that they will get what rent they qualify for which may not be all of it. are they only allowed to claim for one bedroom??? are you charging more than that?? tenant will have to make up the difference.

silvercar

peainapod wrote: »

BITTERANDTWISTED couldn't be more wrong, as usual he's painting your tenant with the same brush as everyone else on housing benefit. When I moved into a house and made my claim it took the council 6 months, yes 6 MONTHS to sort it out. I rang them every single day for that 6 months and was told a different story. I went down to the offices countless times, posted everything that needed to be posted with recorded delivery etc, basically I couldn't have done more and they would still come up with a new story why they were delayed. You will be back paid all the rent, don't have her evicted, if she's on benefit she probably doesnt have a lot of money and this isn't her fault, its the council making us on benefits look bad yet again. I know there's a lot of people on benefits who would mess around landlords and not pay rent but we're not all like that.
I suggest doing everything you can at your end (any paperwork etc) and take it to the office in person and get a receipt for it, ALWAYS ask them for a receipt for anything you hand over. They're not so quick to pull a fast one when you tell them you've got a receipt. Another thing I used to do was keep a notebook and write the date and name of the person you speak to every single time you ring, and what they said. I have a 10 A4 page long story by the end of my ordeal ! Keep calling them all the time if I were you. Good luck to you ! and your tenant as its probably stressing her out too ! Hope this helps

The tenant signs a contract with the landlord agreeing to pay the rent. The fact that the tenant is claiming housing benefit is something for the tenant to sort out with the council. Under the contract the rent is still due.

A delayed claim will obviously cause difficulties for the tenant and if it does mean that the tenant gets into arrears then the landlord can apply to have the rent paid direct.

So a tenant with a delayed claim, without sufficient money set aside to pay the rent until the claim is sorted, will be "yet another" HB tenant who falls behind with the rent.

silvercar

sandraroffey wrote: »

my benefit claim for housing etc took 4 months.

all back rent will be paid but only when the council deem it to be done. i just dont understand how, in the days of computers etc, a claim can take so long.

So you didn't set aside any money to pay the rent until the claim is sorted? Or you set some aside and the claim took longer than expected?

If the latter I have some sympathy, if the former then you knowingly signed a contract knowing you would be unlikely to keep to it - unless you had made it clear at the outset.

Not having a go at you, just the general attitude.