Housing Benefit issues

dd101

Dunroamin wrote: »

Many people claim LHA/HB and then spend it on something else rather than the rent it's intended for. That's also true for child related benefits and some disability based ones as well. It's a major flaw in the benefits system.

What this is actually allowed?? Is this not fraud? The only way you can not spend your HB on rent was if you was not actually paying rent, otherwise at some point you would be evicted :-?. How can you actually take HB and not pay rent with it and be allowed to do that????

Heycock

Well, I wouldn't say it's a flaw....it's all income isn't it. You could say the same about road tax, or petrol duty or any other form of tax raised from a particular source. My only gripe is if it's being spent on unnecessary items but that is a judgement call.

I used to note every Christmas that the biggest piles of empty white good/expensive toy boxes were outside houses in supposedly deprived areas. No doubt in many cases thanks to Provident and Wonga but who knows? And misspending of disability benefits? Take DLA...define the extra cost of being disabled. In what way does the disability put the disabled person at a financial disadvantage in basic needs? No two disabled people or their carers would be able to give the same answer.

The only benefits that COULD be realistically ringfenced are HB and CTB by the simple mechanism of paying HB direct to the landlord and CTB deducted from the CTB bill. But this fell out of favour some time ago. Why? No idea. Was it political reasons?

Heycock

Further to #73 paying HB direct to the landlord might make it easier and administratively cheaper to rent. One of the biggest problems in the private rental sector is the "No DSS" and the demand for guarantors from prospective tenants. A guarantee of receipt of at least the HB element of the rent might get rid of some of these restrictions.

fawd1

Sweetlilac73 wrote: »

Plus you are missing the entire point.

The point was that i dont believe that any government body has the right to tell you how you can spend your money. Its immoral and i imagine illegal and a breach of her human rights.

She deserved that money, she deserved that holiday and i suppose you are all soo moral that if you had a big lot of money come in you wouldnt have a holiday would you.

Oh no, because that you just be too offensive against every tax payer in the country. Idiot !!

I think actually you are missing the entire point. Yes, of course she can spend her money on whatever she likes. What she can't do is spend all of her money on luxuries and then claim she needs help to pay essential bills. That's like me saying to the bank sorry, I can't afford to pay the mortgage, I've just bought myself a porsche, could you let me have it for nothing?

Now I appreciate that she has spent the money on rekitting her new place, in which case as long as she can prove it, I don't imagine it will be a problem. As for the rest, I imagine every single person here if they came into a lot of money would go on holiday. Then they too would be expected to prove what they spent their money on if they were to ask for benefits. Nothing to do with disability, age etc. It's to do with the fact that the government is supposed to be helping those in real need, not those who choose to spend their money elsewhere and then want a handout for the basics.

dd101

Hmm,

See I find it strange. At the moment I am being investigated for housing benefit fraud. I used to get cash income I declared to them and HB, that was it, the only two piles of money I had. Because I had to pay rent cash, I used my cash income to pay rent and my HB that went into my account to pay for the stuff the cash income was meant for, food, travel, etc etc. Apparently, this is a HUGE issue because I cannot show the same amount of HB going out as whats going in. As you said, income is income. My money was all the same, is it an issue what pile you pay the rent from??

Regardless of the council taking issue with how I used to manage my finances, I am shocked that it is OK to use your HB for other things and NOT pay rent at all, leading to you being evicted etc. If your evicted then you clearly did not use any money to pay rent, let alone your HB. How can this be OK??? Then there's me having the authorities breathing down my neck because I made careless errors when claiming as a stupid teenager that genuinely did pay rent, I just didn't manage my finances very well!

fawd1

dd101 wrote: »

What this is actually allowed?? Is this not fraud? The only way you can not spend your HB on rent was if you was not actually paying rent, otherwise at some point you would be evicted :-?. How can you actually take HB and not pay rent with it and be allowed to do that????

Well, yes and no. You get HB straight into your account. Now if you choose to spend that on doing the monthly shop, up to you, it just means that you're going to have to find the rent from somewhere else. If not, as you say, you will be evicted. When I've been in that position, HB came in before my salary. So HB was my "spending money" for the essentials for the month food, petrol, heating etc etc. My salary then paid all the rent. It's swings and roundabouts really.

dd101

This is exactly what I explained the the investigator I done but she said based on that she would pull up years of my bank statements etc. I really could not see why I was not allowed to use my other money to pay rent, I used to always fall short and take out the shortfall of £40/ £50 which you can clearly see on my bank statements. You can also clearly see that I paid for everything using my debit card, even £2 transactions so there was no other reason to draw out cash other than to put it towards my cash rent. I asked her if its a crime to not do things the typical way and her answer was basically yes! Unfortunately ive got a $%^& of an investigator that's out to make my life a little bit like hell and isnt really investigating, more like trying to pin me for anything she possibly can. She even came up with a scenario that someone was forcing me to claim and then give it all to them hehe, its laughable that they can actually come up with this rubbish! Rant over, sorry!

Heycock

dd101....

So far you've told us that you pay cash for your rent. The investigator may be waiting for you to prove that. At the moment to be fair, you're expecting her to take your word for it...and that could be why she's digging her heels in.
This may seem a daft question but have you given her any proof you're paying rent? Like receipts from your landlord or a letter of confirmation. Do your LHA have any details of your landlord?

Heycock

When I was applying for HB I had to give them a copy of the tenancy agreement and show proof of recent rent payments

Heycock

dd101...

Just read your own thread. Didn't realise you were referring to a previous situation. Not clear on this one.