Is someone else paying half the rent income?

johnniegee

I have just received this email from a friend of mine and I'm wondering if he has been told the right info:

.......They [The Council] have just paid me £150pw for the rent for two weeks, when I have only claimed £80 because Marc pays half the rent, which they were told.

It seems that if they pay me the full amount, Marc's money becomes income because his name is not on the tenancy agreement.

I told the girl at the jobcentre when I signed on that Marc lives here and pays half the rent. I also told her I didn't want to claim HB as I had the money for the next month's rent. In all honesty I didn't want to deal with the Council at all after my ongoing experiences from three years ago and thought I'd get a job pretty quick. I used money for other bills to pay September's rent and when I still didn't have a job by mid September I reluctantly claimed HB.

It is fair enough if I have to pay the JSA back for the two weeks that I received dole that they have now paid HB for, but the way I've been told that they have set it up is that the jobcentre will now say that I was getting income from Marc, so I owe them the JSA money they've paid me because I did not declare his rent as income, which it isn't - it's half the rent.

Now if I wait for the jobcentre to get in touch with me if the above is true, I will appeal against their decision. But then it will be too late to ask for back payments from the Council, which they wouldn't give me anyway judging by previous attempts four years ago.

So by not claiming rent from the Council for eight weeks it seems that the council have managed to make me owe the dole money I received.

If this is true, if I'd claimed HB from the beginning I would have received £150pw HB with no dole money and had Marc's £350 pm, eqv to £1000pm less £700 rent plus £18.49pw Council Tax benefit(£80pm), so £380 for me.

As it is I had £67.50 JSA plus Marc's rent eqv to £292 for me to live on per month but pay rent out of, a loss of £58 before food and bills.

Once again I will have saved them money because I wouldn't claim due to their harassment and intimidation and they're going to stitch me up by me having to pay the dole money back. Talk about vindictive.

Let you know what happens,.................................

.....P.S. If the girl at the jobcentre had told me that Marc's half of the rent was income I would have had to go on hb straightaway.

Wages I'm getting now is less than the HB!!!!

******************
Is my friend worrying over nothing or is this true?

gardenpath

Who is Marc in relation to your friend?

johnniegee

just someone he got off of gumtree to rent the spare bedroom

Tehya

The problem with this arrangement is the HB department will look at Mark as a lodger so will see half the rent he pays as a form of income for your friend, The only way to sort this out would be to add Mark to the tenency agreement so he is legally responsible for his half.

I shared with a few friends years ago and that was the way we did it. plus it also meant we were all jointly responsible for the house if someone damaged something.

spikeripley

Surely the lodger would be classed as a non dependant adult and therefore when working out the housing benefit entitlement for your friend they would want proof of income/wages the lodger was receiving and what share he has to pay towards the rent/council tax. They should then reduce your friends housing /ct benefit by that amount.

CIS

The only way to sort this out would be to add Mark to the tenency agreement so he is legally responsible for his half.
.

That may be looked at in depth by the council - they would start to suspect a contrived tenancy.

gardenpath

JSA and HB are separate benefits and your friend should be allowed to receive both in normal curcimstances. I don't know how having a lodger affects JSA, though in all honesty I would guess that it shouldn't provided that your friend can clearly show that the arrangement is as you say.

With regards to HB I'm not sure what the council would do as presumably in your friend's assured tenancy agreement they are not allowed to sub-let so I would imagine you would need clarification of the situation (and proof) from your landlord that you are allowed to do this. What happens from then I would guess depends on the outcome of that. Which I realise doesn't really help!

johnniegee

I know his landlord lets him sublet as he had problems with someone on a joint tenancy four years ago. She wouldn't pay her share of the rent and he had to pay the lot or get thrown out. He gets on with the landlord and the landlord didn't want him out but wanted her rid of, and the joint tenancy was causing problems.

puddy

im afraid it is classed as income. i doubt adding the lodger to the official tenancy or him renting his own room would be seeen as contrived but it may affect the amount the claimant can claim and become an issue with council tax etc, ie the property would become a house of multiple occupation if enough people were living there, however if its just a flat share with 2 beds and 2 people thats fine

theres reasons the landlord might not want to rent single rooms, or might not want to do a joint tenancy. also your friend may not want a joint tenancy because this means that should the lodger up and leave, your friend will be left to pay the full rent, but he is currenly liable for this anyway

DepressedArsenalFan

I've just been told this is on here. My friend done a good job of removing some of the words I had to say about the Council in my email up the top.
To gardenpath: M is someone who works locally and came from an online ad - forgotten which one.
To Teyah: I made an arrangement with my landlady that as I keep getting stuck with the rent, happened twice, I might as well be responsible for all the rent as I was ending up paying it anyway and if I get any problems I can get the other person to leave without them having a tenancy to fall back on when they don't pay - not just the rent but the council tax, gas, electricity, water, tv licence and the rest. Not the way I like it but it evolved through necessity. As it goes M has now been here over three years and pays everything on time!
to spikeripley: I have no idea of M's income etc and told hb this was so. My income and his have nothing to do with each other.
To gardenpath(again): The JSA and HB being separate entities is what I am trying to find out about, I don't like what I'm hearing :-(
To puddy: neither my landlady nor myself want a joint tenancy, as above

And thanks to all for your answers but I am totally suspicious of the council paying me twice what I have asked for as I have been having a running battle with them for the last three plus years over benefits they paid to the last joint tenant.

puddy

your rent is your rent, if it meets the criteria then it will be paid, but they should be using the money your lodger gives you as income, thats the correct way to do it