how to get rid of your savings so you can get council tax benifits

evenasus

brasso wrote: »

I I'm thinking in particular of a Civil Service job I had when I lived in Manchester, years ago. Everyone in the office was delighted to have to go to meetings or training courses in London as we were entitled to the standard train fare and hotel room expenses, for which no receipt was required. We would go down by bus instead and pocket the difference. People with friends or relatives in London could stay with them and still be paid the standard hotel expenses.

There is a very simple solution to this expenses problem.

Everyone, without exception, should have to produce a receipt for any expenses incurred.

Throughout his career, my husband had to produce hotel/travel etc receipts.

margaretclare

moneysaversupremo wrote: »

Having read right through this thread, I know that if I were on the waiting list to get a Council flat (ie because of not being able to afford to buy a home for myself) that I would be asking questions of that local authority. I would want to know why a former home-owner had been allowed to keep the proceeds of their house (rather than downsizing to a smaller place - eg buying a small flat) whilst I myself was still languishing on the waiting list.

A letter would be sent in saying "I can see that flat no so-and-so at such and such address has been rented to a former home-owner, whilst I myself cannot afford to buy and am waiting on your Waiting List. Can I ask whether you checked that this former home-owner had insufficient capital to buy herself anywhere to live and was in a position that there wasn't even sufficient money available to her to buy a retirement flat or park home before allocating her a Council flat that could have been allocated to myself or someone in a similar position?".

I am surprised there would appear to have been no attempt to check whether this woman had sufficient money to buy any sort of home for herself before handing her a Council tenancy.

Are there a lot of spare Council flats that literally no-one else wants in the area concerned?

It's quite possible that the OP has misled us from the first post in this thread by mentioning 'council flat'. It's quite likely that this is not a council flat of the kind that you describe, but some kind of sheltered accommodation. I have heard - don't know how true it is - that there are often more of these available than there are applicants for them.

brasso

evenasus wrote: »

There is a very simple solution to this expenses problem.

Everyone, without exception, should have to produce a receipt for any expenses incurred.

Throughout his career, my husband had to produce hotel/travel etc receipts.

I'm not sure what sort of 'solution' that provides. The same money would still have been paid out. The only difference would be that people would have actually taken the train/stayed in the hotel rather than just pretending to.

There are usually way round these things anyway. A common one is to spend the (say) £25 per day subsistence allowance on beer, but ask the pub to write a receipt saying the amount was spent on food. In London, when you get a taxi, you just ask the driver for a blank receipt. For an extra £1 tip, the driver would usually throw in a few extra blank ones to help bump up the claim with non-existent journeys. Your husband will have known a few good dodges.

evenasus

brasso wrote: »

I'm not sure what sort of 'solution' that provides. The same money would still have been paid out. The only difference would be that people would have actually taken the train/stayed in the hotel rather than just pretending to.

Exactly. They could only claim for what they had actually spent.

brasso wrote: »

There are usually way round these things anyway. A common one is to spend the (say) £25 per day subsistence allowance on beer, but ask the pub to write a receipt saying the amount was spent on food. In London, when you get a taxi, you just ask the driver for a blank receipt. For an extra £1 tip, the driver would usually throw in a few extra blank ones to help bump up the claim with non-existent journeys.

You seem very knowledgeable of these fraudulent practices.

brasso wrote: »

Your husband will have known a few good dodges.

I can assure you that he never has, nor would participate in any such practice.

*Chattie*

moneysaversupremo wrote: »

Having read right through this thread, I know that if I were on the waiting list to get a Council flat (ie because of not being able to afford to buy a home for myself) that I would be asking questions of that local authority. I would want to know why a former home-owner had been allowed to keep the proceeds of their house (rather than downsizing to a smaller place - eg buying a small flat) whilst I myself was still languishing on the waiting list.

A letter would be sent in saying "I can see that flat no so-and-so at such and such address has been rented to a former home-owner, whilst I myself cannot afford to buy and am waiting on your Waiting List. Can I ask whether you checked that this former home-owner had insufficient capital to buy herself anywhere to live and was in a position that there wasn't even sufficient money available to her to buy a retirement flat or park home before allocating her a Council flat that could have been allocated to myself or someone in a similar position?".

I am surprised there would appear to have been no attempt to check whether this woman had sufficient money to buy any sort of home for herself before handing her a Council tenancy.

Are there a lot of spare Council flats that literally no-one else wants in the area concerned?

If such a letter landed on my desk as a housing officer (I'm not) then it would end up in the bin and/or laughed out of the door.

I'm surprised that you can think that way, actually no I'm not surprised.

brasso

evenasus wrote: »

Exactly. They could only claim for what they had actually spent.

Yes of course -- civil servants are no longer going to creatively underspend in order to make a profit. However, if there is no incentive for them to take the bus and claim the standard train fare (pocketing the difference) then they may as well just take the train in any case and enjoy the greater comfort and convenience. The taxpayer is still stumping up the cost of the train fare whether or not the underling is going by train or bus. So no money is saved.

evenasus wrote: »

You seem very knowledgeable of these fraudulent practices.

Wake up! I just explained that I used to carry out all these practices. They were not really fraudulent, just a little creative. I'm sure they still go on. There are plenty more to describe but I am sure they are pretty well known.

evenasus wrote: »

I can assure you that he never has, nor would participate in any such practice.

Of course not. [Stifles chuckle]. In my experience, the 'respectable' ones are usually the sneakiest of the lot.

dtsazza

bobthedambuilder wrote: »

2. We live in a capitalist society. Builders regulate the amount of new housing to safeguard their business (and to balance supply against availability of mortgages). Flooding the market and reducing prices is not in their interest, so they wouldn't do it. The State can't afford to do it.

Flooding the market isn't in the interest of any builder that already controls a majority of the market, certainly.

However a builder that has very low turnover at the moment (with the edge case being a new company with zero houses) will be better off building houses, even at lower prices. If there is an excessive amount of profit in the construction industry (where excessive means notably larger than the return on capital you could get elsewhere for a similar risk profile), then investors should rationally put their money into funding new construction companies who will capture a slice of this pie, bringing overall prices and profits down until equilibrium is reached.

If new companies can't enter into the market for some reason (excessive red tape and/or regulations perhaps), then this represents a departure from the capitalist model. Competition, whether existing or potential, is essential in order to stabilise prices. And we should look at removing or realigning these artificial impediments.

If new companies could enter the market and build homes cheaper but don't want to, then perhaps the market isn't as maladjusted as you think?

4. Any significant reduction in property values will put many more people into negative equity, and IMO many more defaults. Result: toxic loans, banking crisis Number Two.

That's another moral/legal issue. There is no reason why a house being worth less would give someone problems keeping up with the repayments - only changes in their income would do that.

If the number of defaults increases (compared to house prices not falling), then it's only because more people choose to walk away from their financial obligations.

StevieJ

brasso wrote: »

I'm not sure what sort of 'solution' that provides. The same money would still have been paid out. The only difference would be that people would have actually taken the train/stayed in the hotel rather than just pretending to.

The company could just give an allowance that was less than the first class alternatives as an alternative to producing receipts, I think most scammers would probably go for this alternative and still pocket some cash.

evenasus

brasso wrote: »

Yes of course -- civil servants are no longer going to creatively underspend in order to make a profit. However, if there is no incentive for them to take the bus and claim the standard train fare (pocketing the difference) then they may as well just take the train in any case and enjoy the greater comfort and convenience. The taxpayer is still stumping up the cost of the train fare whether or not the underling is going by train or bus. So no money is saved.

But they will not be 'On the make'

brasso wrote: »

Wake up! I just explained that I used to carry out all these practices. They were not really fraudulent, just a little creative. I'm sure they still go on. There are plenty more to describe but I am sure they are pretty well known.

Fraud is fraud.

evenasus wrote: »

I can assure you that he never has, nor would participate in any such practice.

brasso wrote: »

Of course not. [Stifles chuckle]. In my experience, the 'respectable' ones are usually the sneakiest of the lot.

Please don't assume everyone sinks to the levels you're referring to.

StevieJ

evenasus wrote: »

But they will not be 'On the make'




Fraud is fraud.



Please don't assume everyone sinks to the levels you're referring to.

Is it fraud if the company MD and HR dept actually advise you to do it?