Does any one know Council tenants Rights?

LadyOfTheHouse_3

Hi all,

Am asking for a friend who has come to me for advice on which I dont know, My friend rents their house from the council and have been tenants for 10 years, my friend came to me upset saying they had recieved a letter of Rent Increase of I think of nearly £7 per week, my friend is very upset as they have already been struggling for weeks and cutting back on food etc and they are worried how they can meet this. They told me they have tried for a little housing benefit to cover the increase, but they were refused any help.

Yes they are aware of increases each year but were not prepared for this much, do they have any rights to refuse or put forward a claim the increase would be too much for the household to take? Any polite advice welcome.

Please dont shoot the messenger, I would like to help them with some advice if I can.

Thank You.

Notmyrealname

£7 a week? Hardly a massive amount - a packet of fags or a couple of pints of beer. If they drink or smoke or have a takeaway once a week perhaps they should give that up. If they've got Sky TV or the internet or a mobile phone, maybe they should give one of those up. Most people can find £7 a week by adjustment of things they pay out for. I suggest you go over to the Debt Free Wannabee board, get a Statement of Affairs template, get them to fill it in and post it for suggestions.

Anyway if they're not entitled to housing benefit, they're not entitled to housing benefit. They can refuse the increase but that will end the tenancy and believe me they will not find anywhere in the private sector to rent for anything close to the price of where they are now.

poppysarah

They should have a benefits check to see if they are receiving all they are entitled to.

Are they in a bigger property than they need? Sometimes downsizing is encouraged by councils and should get them a cheaper to run property - less rent and less rooms to heat.

RAS

Get your friend to do a full benefit check on www.turn2us.org.uk.

If there is a spare room, can they take a lodger?

poppysarah

Do they pay about £70 a week rent?
http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancies/council-approves-rent-rise-of-almost-10-per-cent/6520045.article

BitterAndTwisted

Council tenants are not in a position to decline paying a rent-increase: that would be the quickest way to securing an eviction. Look at it this way: they are likely to be paying way below local market-rents and a £7 a week increase is barely above inflation.

If they're not entitled to any contribution from Housing Benefit they are patently taking home a fairly decent wage. Or living alone in a massive property.

vintagebrighton

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Council tenants are not in a position to decline paying a rent-increase: that would be the quickest way to securing an eviction. Look at it this way: they are likely to be paying way below local market-rents and a £7 a week increase is barely above inflation.

If they're not entitled to any contribution from Housing Benefit they are patently taking home a fairly decent wage. Or living alone in a massive property.

That's not necessarily true. I too have a £7 pw rent increase which yes, sounds very little. But, we have an income of just over £1000pm for 3 adults and aren't entitled to any help at all. Just because other people pay more than us or the OP's friend doesn't make it any less difficult to manage sometimes. On the other hand, I know how fortunate I am to have a council tenancy (and did downsize before anyone mentions it) and I'll pay it gladly in order to keep my security.

Added - actually the £7.60 rent increase was on £70pw original rent which I believe is way above inflation. It's because the govt wants everyone to be in 'affordable' housing. His way of saying you all have to pay a lot more. Affordable housing is 80% of market rent which in this area would be 80% of £1000pm minimum.

BitterAndTwisted

I dunno about that percentage because I only have my own personal experience to go by. The one-bedroomed flat downstairs from me is being rented privately at £200 a week and my own Local Authority two-bedder is just over £100.

We've been having rent-increases of 5% per annum for the last few years, but they still haven't taken anywhere near local private rents. And they're going to carry out some improvements this year as well. Which makes us very lucky indeed.

BigAunty

I second the person who has suggested that they double check they are receiving all their other benefit entitlements on the Turn2us online benefit calculator.

If they are not due any other benefits, then all they can do is to try to up their income (and there is an Up Your income board) on this forum and slash their spending to free up that extra pound a day (and there is loads of advice on the MSE site how to do this, including the Old style money saving forum). I suggest they download the MSE budget planner as a starting point, then work through the site to find cheap recipes, cheaper tariffs and so on.

On the refusal for extra housing benefit, this is fairly common. It is known as 'discretionary housing payment' or similar and virtually every tenant on housing benefit or Local Housing allowance (for private tenants) has had their rent increased and/or their benefit reduced so there is massive demand on DHP which is only temporary and can't be given to every applicant.

If they do not qualify for any housing benefit at all, it's usually because their income is considered too high. Benefit calculators do not take into account household expenses, including debt, so if they are servicing debts they should look into Debt Management on the Debt Free wanabee board and Direct Gov website.

squinty

There was a similar question on Council rents a few weeks ago - I posted the comments below which may help to understand whay Council rents have increased so much this year. Hope this is helpful

In effect it is the Government not the local council who set the rent. For each property there is an assessment of a target rent, 70% of this is based on the value, and 30% on local issues – and charges adjusted to reflect bedroom size. The idea is that identical properties in the same area should have the same rent charge.

However, many council rents are below the target rent, and will need to increase for several years in order to reach this target. To protect people from excessive rent rises can only be a maximum of £2 per week until the target is reached. On top of this the Government has decided that rents should increase by inflation plus a half percent each year.

Adding this together rents can increase by a maximum of Inflation – plus one half percent – plus £2 per week. The problem this year is that the inflation figure used if or September. Inflation was 5.6% then – so this year increases will be 6.1% plus £2 (if target rent is not reached) In some cases this can produce a rent increase of nearly 10%.

This year there is a additional problem. The Government have changed the way that Council Housing is financed from April.

The current finance system is widely seen to be unfair. For each Council the government make an assessment of what the rent income should be and assumes they will attempt to reach target rent as soon as possible – they also make an assessment of what the management and maintenance costs should be (all using notional figures) if the notional rent is greater than the notional costs then the council must pay the government the difference. Most Councils pay and only a few benefit. The government will make about £300million profit from this in the current year. This is known as the Housing Subsidy System

From April this system will end, and councils will become self financing – and will in theory have more freedoms. However, each Council will need to take on significant borrowing to buy themselves out of the current system – as an analogy they are taking out a mortgage for the properties rather than renting them from the Government.

However, in deciding on the settlement figures for each Council, the government have provided a settlement figure for each council. There has been a slight increase in some of the allowances – but basically the logic is that if the council is able to pay £xmillion under the current system they can now afford to borrow money where they will now pay the same £xmillion as debt repayment.

Unless councils put up rent following the government formula which has been assumed within settlement there is a risk that they will be unable to repay the commitments on the new loans they have needed to take out this year.

Some will say that Councils have a choice. In theory this is correct, but legally councils must set balanced budgets - so the only real choice is to either put the rents up or break the law.

Notmyrealname

vintagebrighton wrote: »

That's not necessarily true. I too have a £7 pw rent increase which yes, sounds very little. But, we have an income of just over £1000pm for 3 adults and aren't entitled to any help at all.

So between you you can't each find an extra 33 pence per day?