Months rent in advance means?

Charityworker

Sorry for being thick but we have been in our housing association house for 4 years now and always received 80% housing benefit until 3 weeks ago when my husband started a full time job. We got a nasty phonecall from our representative yesterday saying we are £210 in arrears. I explained that our HB has been suspended and I was waiting until my husbands first payday (in 10 days time) when I will be paying off the arrears. Then from then on I will be paying the rent weekly. The woman said that that wasn't good enough as the rent is due a month in advance. So last night I paid £300 off the arrears which takes us into an £80 credit. Then in 10 days time I'm going to pay £500 off it when my husband gets paid. Then from then on I am going to pay £400 every 4 weeks (the rent is £99.96). How is this not good enough?

shonzyd

rent in advance would effectively mean you pay the first month or week (whatever rent cycle you are on) on the day you move in.

so if my rent was £500. i would pay £500 on the day i move in (although ive only been in there a day) then a month later and so on. So effectively you pay in advance.

if you were to pay in arrears. you would move in and pay nothing til a month later. so you have been in there a month until the first payment is due.

those are examples but hope that makes sense

cr1mson

Did you inform them of all of this prior to it happenning? Even if HB had stopped and your husband had not been paid you would still be expected to pay your rent.

I would hope there would be some leeway in circumstances such as yours but only if they had been informed. Hopefully with more knowledge will be able to confirm if this is the case.

shonzyd

yes and the responsibility is down to you to report a change in circs and you cannot wait until payday if the rent was already due before then.

BigAunty

While your HB may have been suspended and you are in a limbo period until your husband gets paid, your obligation to pay rent still continues even though your means to pay it have been interrupted, plus if your contract obliges you to pay the full month's rent in advance, paying it off on a weekly basis of your own volition isn't necessarily going to be accepted by the landlord.

EDIT - very simply put, if the contract says the month's rent is due in advance on the 1st of the month, it means you are paying upfront, so by paying the month in advance, you then are paying ahead for the rest of the month. Payment of rent in arrears is where you would pay that month's rent at the end of that actual month, for the period you'd already spent in the property. Few landlords operate like that - they want the tenants to pay ahead for a future period - for example, payment on 1st March for the rest of the month, not paying on the 31st for that historic period of time - they consider this as debt/arrears.

Payments every 4 weeks if the rent is payable on a monthly basis would also mean that arrears would start to creep in - there are 13 weeks in a quarter so there is gradual slippage, there is generally more than 28 days in every month so each month would have a few days underpayment.

Tenants on housing benefit, I understand, get their LHA every 4 weeks and this is paid directly to the social housing landlord in arrears and so you would have topped up the difference yourself on a timely basis because you weren't entitled to full HB which would have prevented any arrears from building up, I assume. Or perhaps the social housing landlord, as they received the HB directly, were more tolerant of the cycle of receipt/payment going out of synch.

Now you are paying it in full yourself, you need to start matching the full month's payment at the beginning of the monthly rental period. Perhaps the difference in the way HB payments operate have lulled you into not being aware of what the actual terms of the rental contract is?

Have you had a look at the contract? Are you satisfied that they've correctly identified the arrears or do you think they've miscalculated? I think the break between HB and receipt of employment income has thrown the pattern into disarray.

This is my interpretation of what may have happened - the payment dates and periods due for your rent according to your contractual obligations isn't matching with the actual dates/periods you pay it.

For example, if the monthly rent is actually £433.16 (99.96 x 52 weeks/12 months) and is due in advance on the 1st of the month, then paying £399.84 (that represents 4 weeks rent) later than the 1st is both late and an underpayment. Hope that makes sense.

If that does make sense, you might like to set up a standing order to ensure that the full sum reaches the landlords account by the date due rather than making a lot of manual payments or ending up in credit.

Were you entitled to a HB run-on at all? In some circumstances, depending on the length of a benefit claim, the HB continues to be paid for a period but you would have to tell forum members the type of benefit and claim period for them to know if you were entitled to a run on.

The Shelter website has good information to help tenants in arrears with their landlord which recommends proactive timely communication rather than just running into arrears.

boo2410

BigAunty is right, definitely check about the 4 week run on, if you have been claiming JSA/ESA/IS for 26 weeks with no break in the claim, and the job is expected to last at least 4 weeks then you should qualify.

I work for a HA and if tenants go back to work and don't qualify for a run on we will make an agreement to bring the account a month in advance - normally between £50 to £100 a month extra as few people can pay 2 months rent in one go.

Good luck. Boo

Charityworker

Thanks for your messages. Yes I did let the landlord know about this on 15th feb when my husband started his job. I explained there was a break between the last hb payment and my husbands first wage and that as soon as he got his first wage my first priority would be to pay the rent.

If I pay the £500 on the 25th that will take is into a plus of £410. Then I'll pay the next payment on 25th April of £416 which will be in advance again. I can't conjure up money that isn't there!

The woman that rang yesterday was so nasty. She was actually going on about courts and evictions! Where do we stand on that? Anyone would think we owe hundreds the way she was going on.

Charityworker

Unfortunately we don't qualify for the 4 week run on as my husband wasn't signing on. I work so he didn't sign on

mrschaucer

Is your rent due every 4 weeks in advance or every month in advance? If every month, what date is it due? Have you checked yet?

Charityworker

It's a month in advance on the 1st. So am I thinking right that it needs to be in credit by 1 month on the 1st of each month?

BigAunty

Charityworker wrote: »

...

The woman that rang yesterday was so nasty. She was actually going on about courts and evictions! Where do we stand on that? Anyone would think we owe hundreds the way she was going on.

It's a shame that she couldn't have been more diplomatic about it and reached a mutually acceptable repayment plan like Boo2410 has outlined. You could always write a polite letter to a senior manager to propose this as a good practice for them to adopt and/or go through the internal complaints process if you want to address her specific rudeness.

I'm not sure why you are building up a credit, though - why aren't you just positioning yourself out of the arrears and then paying the full rent by an automatic standing order to time to clear when when the full rent is due rather than the odd amounts you intend to pay?

You can probably ask them for a statement if you need to understand better the payment received/due cycle.

That said, landlords are generally not impressed with any rent arrears and one thing that deters landlords from accepting private sector tenants on HB is precisely this sort of thing, how a change of circumstance can automatically trigger rent arrears (and also, and I say this as a general observation and not as a personal attack, the way that some tenants with a HB issue that impacts the rent have an attitude that the landlord has to lump it and that the rent arrears are not their responsibility. It's true that they can't pay, rather than won't pay but it's still not found to be acceptable).

Rent arrears are a really serious issue but that said, it's very hard for social housing landlords to evict their tenants in practice, even with significant persistent arrears or anti social behaviour as judges tend only to consent when it is a total last resort and when the landlord can demonstrate that they've done their best to assist them.

My understanding is that some social housing landlords have systems that trigger stern letters and commence court proceedings for quite small and first time breaches of the contract, that rent arrears are a serious matter that social housing landlords are keen to not let snowball out of control as it eats into their budget for repairs, new properties, etc. I suppose that typically their tenants have low incomes and the longer it goes on, the harder it is for them to get on top of the debt.

Also, I understand that many social landlords say it is their tenants, not just them, that are keen for them to implement very strict rules regarding arrears and very little tolerance for them, that they have strong support in this area.

General advice here for social housing tenants in arrears.


http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/help_with_money/rent_arrears