Hosuing benefits

poppasmurf_bewdley

Anubis wrote: »

They do contact your landlord and you do have to supply that information, otherwise people could rent off their friends and relatives without issues! They have always contacted the Landlord. I started my private tenancy 15 years ago and they even contacted my Lanlord then.

Why some don't want DSS is to avoid paying TAX because they are contacted and then they are placed in the system, so tax fraud is hard for them to get away with.

Ok. have it your way. You know they do, and I know they don't.

Of course you have to supply the info in your application, but Data Protection will prohibit them from passing any info to the Landlord.

I quote from my council's website:

By law we are not allowed to tell landlords or agents any details concerning the personal circumstances of a claimant.


If payment is being made directly to the landlord on your request, or we have a signed declaration from you regarding ' sharing information with your landlord' we will be able to confirm only the following points with the landlord.

• That direct payment is being made
• The start date and/or end date of the award
• The amount of entitlement (but not how it is calculated)
• The reduced amount of award should there be a recovery of an overpayment
• Changes in the amount of housing benefit awarded
• The method and frequency of payment

Anubis_2

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

Ok. have it your way. You know they do, and I know they don't.

Of course you have to supply the info in your application, but Data Protection will prohibit them from passing any info to the Landlord.

I quote from my council's website:

By law we are not allowed to tell landlords or agents any details concerning the personal circumstances of a claimant.

If payment is being made directly to the landlord on your request, or we have a signed declaration from you regarding ' sharing information with your landlord' we will be able to confirm only the following
points with the landlord.

• That direct payment is being made
• The start date and/or end date of the award
• The amount of entitlement (but not how it is calculated)
• The reduced amount of award should there be a recovery of an
  overpayment
• Changes in the amount of housing benefit awarded
• The method and frequency of payment

Yes, I didn't state they would share information, I said they will contact
them (to confirm tenancy) and, from your own words, your post shows that indeed they do contact them and discuss the very points you listed:

we will be able to confirm only the following points with the landlord.. (points listed below that housing discuss with Landlord)

[*]That direct payment is being made
[*]The start date and/or end date of the award
[*]The amount of entitlement (but not how it is calculated)
[*]The reduced amount of award should there be a recovery of an overpayment
[*]Changes in the amount of housing benefit awarded
[*]The method and frequency of payment


These points they discuss with the Landlord will CLEARLY let the landlord know the prospective tennant is claiming housing benefit.

turkleton

Anubis wrote: »

Yes, I didn't state they wpuld share information, I said they will contact them (to confirm tenancy) from your own words, your postmshows that indeed they do contact them and discuss the very points you listed ( read the bold print)

Anubis, if you read poppasmurfs post properly you'd see that the council will only contact the landlord on the claimants request or if they have a signed declaration giving permission to discuss the claim given to them by the tenant.

Macro_3

Anubis wrote: »

Yes, I didn't state they wpuld share information, I said they will contact them
(to confirm tenancy) from your own words, your postmshows that indeed they do contact them and discuss the very points you listed:

we will be able to confirm only the following points with the landlord.
[*]That direct payment is being made
[*]The start date and/or end date of the award
[*]The amount of entitlement (but not how it is calculated)
[*]The reduced amount of award should there be a recovery of an overpayment
[*]Changes in the amount of housing benefit awarded
[*]The method and frequency of payment


These points they discuss with the Landlord will CLEARLY let the landlord know the prospective tennant is claiming housing benefit.

No the post quoted says that the LA will only discuss the above points with a landlord, and only then when either the payments are being made directly to that landlord, or when they have written permission to discuss the claim with the landlord from the claimant.

The only instance where I'm aware that a LA would contact a landlord or discuss a claim without explicit permission to do so would be where the property is local authority owned.

Anubis_2

Yes sorry didn't see that but would imagine if the declaration isn't signed it could hold up benefits. I am going to look further into this though, because it leaves the gate wide open to abuse. If housing benefit do not contact landlords, Anyone can claim it stating they are renting from any fictitional landlord.....

turkleton

That fair enough Anubis. A claimant needs to supply a tenancy agreement or a letter as proof of rent from their landlord but a council wouldn't contact the landlord as a matter of course. I get your point that it does leave the system open to abuse but with data matching, land registry records and fraud officers at their disposal the majority of fraudulent claims will be identified quickly.

Unfortunately there are a lot of opportunities for people to defraud the benefits system but we just have to put our faith in the fact that the vast majority of people aren't fraudulent.

Anubis_2

It leaves the system very wide open to abuse, something I thought they wanted to prevent. Either way it still wouldn't pay not telling the landlord that you are DSS because if they specifically state no DSS and you take up rental of a property knowing you are and not informing them, then you would be at risk of being made homeless, so it is not a good idea IMHO what poppasmurf was suggesting.

Additionally, to not inform them you would need to ensure you have plenty of money saved since you will be footing the bill until your LHA is sorted which can take many months.

Macro_3

Anubis wrote: »

Yes sorry didn't see that but would imagine if the declaration isn't signed it could hold up benefits. I am going to look further into this though, because it leaves the gate wide open to abuse. If housing benefit do not contact landlords, Anyone can claim it stating they are renting from any fictitional landlord.....

Not at all. There is no need to give permission to discuss the claim with the landlord - most people don't and it makes no difference to the claim.

poppasmurf_bewdley

Anubis wrote: »

Yes sorry didn't see that but would imagine if the declaration isn't signed it could hold up benefits. I am going to look further into this though, because it leaves the gate wide open to abuse. If housing benefit do not contact landlords, Anyone can claim it stating they are renting from any fictitional landlord.....

Not signing the declaration will not hold up any benefits. As for your claim that anyone could be renting from any fictional landlord, remember that councils have access to Land Registry files as well as previous renting records, council tax records, electoral registration, etc, and they will soon cotton on to anyone putting down a ficticious landlord.

I think you are also looking for difficulties where none exist. If anyone were to put 'No DSS' on an advert and then tried to get you out because you were would find themselves thrown out of court, if for nothing more than there is no such thing as DSS now and hasn't been for several years, so the phrase is meaningless.

Macro_3

Anubis wrote: »

Yes sorry didn't see that but would imagine if the declaration isn't signed it could hold up benefits. I am going to look further into this though, because it leaves the gate wide open to abuse. If housing benefit do not contact landlords, Anyone can claim it stating they are renting from any fictitional landlord.....

Not really. It's quite possible to cross reference with council tax records who the owner of a particular property is, who has lived there before, and when the property has changed ownership, and cross reference that with the details on the tenancy agreement and the address histories of landlord and claimant.