Council Trying to screw us: Need help

RustedKnight

Hi, me and my partner rent a house from our local council.

Due to me being currently out of work, and my partner working on average less than 24 hours per week our Rent is paid for by Housing Benefit.
(we still cover water, electric, gas)

In october my Partner went over her average due to some overtime and worked an average of 25 hours per week for a single month.

In Mid November we recieve a letter stating that we had broken our tenancy agreement due to a failure to pay the rent.

Upon speaking to someone in the council we find that we never recieved any of the letters they "sent" telling us that we had to pay an extra £20 a week rent due to her breaking over the 24 average.

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1 thing to notice here is they are asking for £122.66 back, yet if we are overpaid for a single month then it should be roughly £80.

Now we are being told that we must pay £40 a week Rent to pay back what we owe, again we were told this on a letter we never recieved.

My partners Average hours were back under the 24 hour a week limit the following month, yet we are still being charged as if we were over 24 hours.

We really need help, her income cannot afford to pay £40 a week rent, plus covering our phone/internet bill, food, electric, water etcetera.

To make matters worse, the Citizens Advice Bureau in our town seems to have closed unannounced so we are unable to get help.

We can apply to appeal, but it will have to be a special appeal "as the time to launch an appeal has closed", again, we were never notified.
Our Christmas is ruined, we are on the verge of tears and have no idea what we can do.

I am considering writing a letter to my local MP about the way my council is treating us, as this is the second time we have been threatened with eviction after not recieving their letters.
(just a note here, we recieve their monthly newsletter, and other such letters from the council, so we are recieving post, if they send it.)

Please, give us help and guidance. We need all the help we can get.

G_M

Put everything in writing. Explain you have not been getting their letters and explain why (if you know?).
Also show the correct mathmatics to explain what YOU think you owe, and why it is different to what THEY say.
Offer what you can pay off weekly.

Do it all in writing, and send the letter recorded delivery, or hand deliver and get a delivery receipt.

Find out why your post is getting lost. Speak to Royal Mail; check the address the council are puting on the letters. Do you share a letterbox (ie in a communal block of flats?)

Find out who your local councillor is - much more relevant than your MP. The council website should tell you. He'll have a weekly/monthly surgery so go and see him, or email.

I'm not familiar with council appeals processes (this is not a court process is it? Have they taken you to court for non-payment?) but I'm sure they have leeway where correspondance has got lost. Again, your councillor can advise.

RustedKnight

Thank you for your help. I shall find out who my councillor is and try to have a word with him/her.

The only explanation for why we are not recieving the letters is they haven't sent any. They have to have our correct address for the Housing Benefit to be paid to, and we recieve other letter from the council and everything else perfectly. But I will take your advice and speak to royal mail.
And no, we don't share a letterbox, they can't get that wrong.

I don't know if it is a court process, we haven't been taken to court for non payment, but we are threatened with losing our home, atleast thats how we understand it now, chances are it is a court process but we never recieved the letter explaining that.

G_M

RustedKnight wrote: »

I don't know if it is a court process, we haven't been taken to court for non payment, but we are threatened with losing our home, atleast thats how we understand it now, chances are it is a court process but we never recieved the letter explaining that.

These two statements contradict each other.

You need to find out, since appealing against a court decision is completely different to appealing against an internal council decision.

RustedKnight

G_M wrote: »

These two statements contradict each other.

You need to find out, since appealing against a court decision is completely different to appealing against an internal council decision.

That was me being unneedingly sarcastic at the end, my apologies. As far as we are aware there is no court process at the moment.

We have done our calculations, And my partner needs to earn £400 this month for us to pay off all of our bills and allow us to have food and electric.
We won't have a penny spare for Christmas, meaning no Christmas dinner or presents. 2 years in a row they've ruined our christmas now. But its surviving that counts. This is, based of course on the fact that she earns £400.

You know what the worst part is, the really sad part. Our lives were better when neither of us had a job. We were better off living entirely on benefits. What has Britain come to

clutton_2

Can you go into the local council office with pay slips for your partner and get them photocopied onto the system so that they can at least make a start to prepare a proper arrears statement for you.

RustedKnight

clutton wrote: »

Can you go into the local council office with pay slips for your partner and get them photocopied onto the system.

We've done this already, so far they haven't even ammended their data to show we've handed it in. We have the reciept here though.

Asking for a complete official arrears sheet is a good idea though, I will arrange to collect it in person too.

clutton_2

Rachel as long as you are going down to collect a rent statement, then take the wages slips with you and .... do it again.... if they do take you to court, they will look UTTERLY stupid if you have given them relevant facts twice and they still ignore them.....

BitterAndTwisted

If you have supplied all the necessary documentation for the council to re-calculate the amount of rent you should owe and they haven't got round to it yet, every single time you receive another letter get yourself round to their offices and re-present your documents. Make an absolute nuisance of yourself. They should put a note on your rent-account that recalcs are outstanding and shouldn't bother you with any more letters IF they have a proper system.

They won't evict you for owing them a mere hundred quid or so. If it's going to cause you hardship to pay the arrears at the rate they are demanding offer them a fiver a week.

RustedKnight

Good advice, i'll do that Clutton.

Out of interest, why did you call me Rachel?

RustedKnight

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

If you have supplied all the necessary documentation for the council to re-calculate the amount of rent you should owe and they haven't got round to it yet, every single time you receive another letter get yourself round to their offices and re-present your documents. Make an absolute nuisance of yourself. They should put a note on your rent-account that recalcs are outstanding and shouldn't bother you with any more letters IF they have a proper system.

They won't evict you for owing them a mere hundred quid or so. If it's going to cause you hardship to pay the arrears at the rate they are demanding offer them a fiver a week.

They tried to evict us Christmas time last year because we hadn't paid our rent for the month, (£240 i think) because we hadn't applied for Housing Benefit.
The letter of eviction was delivered Midday on a sunday (no post on a sunday) with no stamp, so was delivered by hand. It was dated for 12 days earlier in the month, stating we had 2 weeks from the date on the letter to respond or we got evicted. And if I remember correctly the monday was a bank holiday.

Except we had applied for it, twice. Both times filled in at their front desk with the help of an advisor. This was when us youngsters learned to get a reciept for EVERYTHING you do.

So I wouldn't put it past them to force eviction for £100.

And that goes to show what their system is like. My local council is a disgrace.
I willmake an effort of going in weekly to hand over all the current payslips and getting reciepts for them until they ammend how much we owe.

-edit- Oops, sorry, didn't mean to double post.