Housing Benefit

reason_2

Hi all,

First time poster. Be gentle with me!! Hoping someone could offer some advice. Am in a bit of a pickle.

I am in receipt of income support and housing/council tax benefit.

Up until now I've more or less received full housing benefit, normally never paying more than £15 a month top-up to my landlord.

We've (myself, wife and 2.5 year old daughter) have just moved because the flat we were living in was too small. The 2nd bedroom wasn't big enough for a single bed for our daughter who's come out of her cot, and we're expecting another baby in March. We have a fair amount of Debt and recently wrote off to our creditors to offer them reduced payments so we thought we'd move sooner rather than later while our credit is good.

The rent for the previous flat was £300/month which was over 2 years ago when we moved in. This place is £425/month. This is pretty much cheap for where we live and it's a very nice flat with 2 spacious bedrooms and a decent backyard for the kids to play (didn't have one in last flat).

Worked out whether or not Housing Benefit would full rent before we moved on their own calculator and entitledto.co.uk and they both gave the exact figure that we'd get almost full benefit and only have to pay a small top-up (as usual).

Received Award letter today after a month of waiting (Rent Officer had to come out to evaluate the place) and they've awarded us £300 a month.. the exact same amount we got before! Our old flat has since gone up for rent again at an inflated price of £375. So why have they only given us £300 again, it's like they've taking no notice of market inflation? So we couldn't even afford to move back into our old flat, let alone afford to rent this one. And no hope of renting else where since £400/month is the bare minimum for renting a 2-bed flat where we live. We've been on the council list for god-knows how long, there is such a shortage of properties with the council. At this rate we will be homeless.

I've rang them to confirm the figures are correct and they said I got to put a letter in writing to dispute a claim with the WARNING that the figure will either be confirmed or lower??!? What the hell? so basically they're telling you not to dispute it..

I've been in touch with a place that is a little like C.A.B. but only deal with your dispute with you.. however, the earliest appointment is end of the month and the letter I received today says I only have 30 days from the date of their letter to dispute it. So I've more or less had to send a letter to them today disputing it, knowingly they're going to tell me where to get off!

Wife is devastated, in floods of tears this morning, we're struggling finanically as it is.. we simply cannot afford to pay the rent, we're stuck here for a minimum of 6 months, and frankly don't know what to do.

Cannot understand why they've stated £425 is unreasonable, as most of the properties in this street rent well over the 400 mark, yet they're only paying £300.

Does anyone have any advice? had similar problem? had any resolution? being told any dispute won't result in higher payment is just plain redicious.. is that true? Basically it sounds like they're threating you not to dispute it.

The place I'm going to see end of the month apparently will take them to court if there is no resolution, but it all sounds rather drastic.

A friend of mine recommended the place after he had been trying to claim DLA for 2 years only to be declined, and after a court case he received it. Although that took a very long time, and we cannot even find the extra money to pay the first month's rent.

Anyway, waffling now.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Peter.

Mrs_pbradley936

No advice but I would keep your landlord fully informed about what is going on. Show him the letters, get him to confirm the cost of your rent and most importantly make sure HB people know that it is a perfectly average rent for the area and that you are not living in a palace or a penthouse and expecting them to foot the bill. It will all sort itself out but you can do without the landlord threathening to evict you for non payment right on top of Christmas because all he knows is that he is not getting any rent.

bewitched1234

Im in exactly the same situation as you and im having to pay my landlord £170.00 per month and i am struggling,my last place was cheaper than this place i have now because i moved to my new home for 3 bedrooms as i have a boy and a girl and they are giving me £5 extra a week,how can they do this ?????? i could cry every day with lack of money.

hope an answer comes soon

amyg

I was told I would recive full hb before i was given a property by the council. I have a 2 bed hse and share it with my 1 year old daughter, i was told not to pay rent as it would take about 4 weeks and would then be paid by hb. After 6 weeks I received a letter saying as I am on TC I am not entitled to any hb. Apparently if you work and are on TC you are on a higher income than the basic living allowance hence now I have to pay 100pw on rent and CT! Plus pay off the £600 incurred from waiting to hear.

reason_2

Unfortunately my landlord wanted the money for each month regardless of how long it took HB to sort out my claim. I only hassled them twice in the 5 weeks it took to process, and receiving it today (4th) with my rent due on the 1st was quite a godsent, until I opened the letter anyway.

I need to find £115 for November and quite possibly same again for December. It's pretty much screwed up any kind of Christmas for us.

All we can think of, they see our move as unneccessary, so are paying the same rent. Like pbradley said, it's not as though we've moved into a designer pad or a palace, this is simply the going rate for a flat in the exact same place we live.. I've only moved 2 minutes away.. and the flat we were in, is on the market again for £75 more than we were paying, and like I said, is too small for our needs.

Plus that £300 in the old place was for unfurnished. This place is partly furnished with white goods.. so technically they should be paying slightly more? Guess they don't take that into consideration.

Dying to hear if anyone has successfully appealed against HB... please please reply with your story. Anything to boost our confidence.

Will see how the appeal goes, and if not, next step is that advice place to help with my (re)appeal.

Peter.

Eager_Elephant

Hi Peter,

When you wrote into the council disputing your eligible rent you should have also put reasons why you are disputing such as other rents in the area are the same and also enclosed proofs from estate agents and also listed what extra's your house has to command a higher rent than the last place.

Unfortunately benefit calculators assume that when you enter your rent as a private tenant that the figure is eligibale rent when it is not hence the reason you are receiving less HB.

Basically you have Rent Charged which the Rent Officer has to decide whether that is a Fair Rent for the area and also Local Reference Rent which is the average figure used.

After the Rent Officer called out you should have been sent a letter explaining this so you can see how far out your rent is.

The appeals I have seen for Rent Service are to do with the local reference rent being too low for the area.

Obviously with any appeal/dispute there is the risk that you lose benefit as they may change their mind for the worse about the initial assessment but in my experience this does not happen often, the council are just telling you the possible outcomes so they cover themselves.

If the HB is not changed and you need to find the extra rent see if your Council do a scheme called DHP - Discretionary Housing Payment. This is a fund set up by the council to help people pay the shortfall of their rent, you have to complete a form and probably an income and expenditure and as the name suggests the payments are discretionary and there is no right of appeal.

Also don't forget that the payments you receive are 4 weekly so yearly you will get 13 payments so the amount you get paid will be less than your monthly rent anyway but over the year it will work out correctly.

Any more questions, fire away

EE

Eager_Elephant

Hi bewitched,

I expect the reason they are not paying your full rent is because the rent has been assessed as too high.

If you have 2 children and yourself living together then the Rent Office determination will say that you only need a 2 bedroomed house as children are allowed to share a room until 1 reaches the age of 10.

This is not necessarily fair but these are the rules.

See my post above about the DHP and see if your council do a similar scheme.

EE

Mrs_pbradley936

You may find that your landlord has a mortgage to pay on a certain day and will face penalities if he falls behind. That is one of the reasons why you often see "no DHSS or HB" on properties because it is all very well for the benefits people to sort it all out but it can take ages and people often do not have spare cash just hanging around so they can in effect subsidise the benefits office.

peter999

reason wrote:

I've rang them to confirm the figures are correct and they said I got to put a letter in writing to dispute a claim with the WARNING that the figure will either be confirmed or lower??!? What the hell? so basically they're telling you not to dispute it..

I think you can ask for written explanation of HB decision.
You want this so you know what is causing problem & what to appeal against.

On appeal I can't see they would lower the HB assessment if your previous rent was cheap at that price. They seem to have assessed your needs as being same as before but not fully taken into account that previous rent was cheap & below local market rate.

Unfortunately HB hasn't always kept pace with real rents & I think the system tries to cap it to prevent HB rent inflation.

Are there any housing advice centres etc. who can help ??

peter999

reason_2

Many thanks to Eager_Elephant for superb advice. I have printed off the CHEAPEST 2 bed flats in my town from about 4 Estate Agents. I circled all the ones that are local to where we live, took an average, and guess what it is, exactly £425 which is what our rent is.

I guess I'll have to write another letter as an appendum to my dispute.

Never knew about DHP.. nice to know we've got some options if things don't go our way.

Thanks again.

Peter.

reason_2

Peter999,

Yes there is a place. I have an appointment, but it's not until the 20th. And the Award letter stated I have 1 calendar month from the Award letter date (30th Nov) to dispute it. So I thought I best put a letter in and see what happens between now and when I go for help. I took EE's advice and printed off the property list and drafted another letter which I'll drop off to them tomorrow.

I stated that I had valid reasons for moving, that the 2nd bedroom wasn't big enough for a single bed (it's more of a cupboard with a window than a bedroom) and that my daughter had moved out of her cot and was sleeping in our bed with no room for an extra bed in our master bedroom. And my wife being pregnant with our 2nd child, it was unsuitable to have a 2 1/2 old child sleeping in our bed.

I checked local council website, they do offer the DHP.. is it the same people who deal with the Benefits though? There's no specific contact information.

I think you hit the nail on the head with their "real rents" being out of date. We found it extremely odd to be given the exact same rent down to the last penny as our previous flat.

In my letter I did ask for an explaination as well.

I'll keep you posted what happens. Feeling a lot less stressed about it tonight, but not nice when your Wife is in tears, screaming what are we going to do, and I cannot do or say anything to remedy the situation.

Do hope it sorts itself out sooner rather than later. It's already a struggle finding the money to pay off our Debt's let alone finding the extra money to pay the additional rent.

Thanks for your post Peter999.

Cheers,

Peter.