Can you get housing benefits paid to you directly rather than to the landlord?

pandas66

Just for evenhandedness here, I work for a company that rents out a few flats.
Currently we have 4 HB recipients, we have no problem letting to 'them'. Infact 1 of our tennants has a small child and we only took half the usual deposit of her as she needed to get some furniture.
I would contact your Uni as soon as possible about finding a flat/house. I would also get on the internet to source online letting agents. Have you any previous landlord/s that would give you a reference if needed?

Don't be disheartened a lot of Landlords do see the benefit of single parent families and those who are going to Uni must be regarded higher too.

Best Wishes.

silvercar

My insurer would not insure me if HB payments were not made direct to me. The insurance was more expensive because my tenant is claiming HB.

I had the opposite, if HB was paid to me, I had to declare the HB tenant and pay a higher premium. With HB paid directly to the tenant, you have no right too know this information and your tennats financial arrangements shouldn't affect your insurance.

Lets face it, with a long term tenant, if they claim HB a some point during their stay how and why would you know? Certainly a tenant could be taken on then claim HB later on, no way of evicting just because she has suddenly claimed benefit.

pickles110564

I would have HB tenant's all the time as our local council pays on time every month straight into my bank account.
I would not take HB's if the money was paid directly to them as it would be to much temptation to them having all that cash in their hands.

cannycat

I also live in Exeter, though haven't always. I confirm what the poster above who works for the Uni says. Accommodation down here is shockingly overpriced for what it is (as is, in fact, the whole city - you pay about 10-20% more for many things here than in Bristol or Plymouth such as train fares, meals out, plane fares and storage to name a few); and accommodation is generally much more old-fashioned and less well-maintained than in many other cities. Expect to see things that have more or less died out in other parts of the country, such as 1970 style storage heaters! Parking is also like gold dust - the only other places I know that are as bad as this are York, Portsmouth and parts of central London. It might be worth looking at easyroommate.com as well - I don't know if sharing is an option, the rooms on there tend to be for shared houses, but they do list small flats occasionally. If you can go slightly further out from the city centre (Exmouth on the coast or Honiton in East Devon; Exmouth has a reasonable bus service, can't speak for Honiton, both are fairly easy to get to by car if that is an option) then you will get a bit more for your money. In the wake of the buy to let boom, the Express and Echo (local paper) now has a renting only supplement on a Tuesday as well as the Thursday houses bit. Good luck!

ginger_nuts

My tenant claims HB ,but it is paid directly to me ,but from April 2008 it will be paid directly to the tenant .I am not happy about this ,but neither the tenant or I will have a choice in this .

peter999

ginger_nuts wrote: »

My tenant claims HB ,but it is paid directly to me ,but from April 2008 it will be paid directly to the tenant .I am not happy about this ,but neither the tenant or I will have a choice in this .

I think Councils want to pay directly to the tenant, the person that makes the claim & is responsible for the claim.

I'm not sure how HB deal with an overpayment paid direct to a Landlord, but I suspect there could be a problem getting the money back, if the tenant has left, but HB is still being paid for a month or two.

peter999

thesaint

deary65 wrote: »

I have been dealing with the benefit agency for over twenty years so i'm familiar with the primary and secondary legislation which govern it's administration.
Well, that's something to wow your guests with at a dinner party.
They are under a statutory duty to make a payment within two weeks subject to them having all the information which they need to access the claim.
Fair enough, do they do this? No? Well so much for that nugget of information.
I use DSS in the general sense that it has become known, ie people on benefits! No need to use exclamation marks, it doesn't make you right when you are wrong. Why not get used to calling them housing benefit claimants, it's 2007.

Jeez where did they find you?

Voyager2002

deary65 wrote: »

"In many cases, landlords do not accept people on benefit because their insurance says that they must not. Agents just follow the landlords on this."

If this were the case it could amount to discrimination.Do you have a copy of such an agreement.

Not any more. As a landlord, I was told this by an underwriter working for my trade union's insurance service for members. Later, I was told this by a buildings insurer that I had been planning to use: at that point my letting agent pointed me in the direction of a different insurer who did not discriminate.

BTW this kind of discrimination is perfectly legal, just like an employer discriminating against people who don't have the necessary qualification. Discrimination is only illegal when it is on the basis of race; gender; disability and perhaps sexual orientation.

Voyager2002

cannycat wrote: »

If you can go slightly further out from the city centre (Exmouth on the coast or Honiton in East Devon; Exmouth has a reasonable bus service, can't speak for Honiton, both are fairly easy to get to by car if that is an option) then you will get a bit more for your money.

Yes, my boss lives in Exmouth and it is an easy journey to campus. He does it by train: basically there is only one road linking Exmouth to the outside world, and so traffic jams on it are pretty bad. Trains go straight through, and there is a station within easy walking distance of Exeter University campus.

However, if you are going to the Plymouth University campus in Exeter transport could be a little more difficult.

clutton_2

The vast majority of mortgage lenders specify very clearly in their mortgage terms and conditions that Housing Benefit tenants must not be offered tenancies.

About 4 years back, landlords in Liverpool moved a HB tenant in, and 6 months later the tenant moved out and the landlord had had not one single penny in rent - this is no way to treat a service-provider. It has improved since, but, in spite of earlier assertions, the general wait before a landlord gets HB for rent is 2 months - would you work for 2 months with no income ?

The other complication is that HB is paid four weekly in arrears, whilst normal tenants pay rent calendar monthly in advance - so it makes accounting that much more difficult. However, once HB is set up, it does arrive as regular as clockwork.

But, the tenant can change the payment method (from directly to the landlord to directly to the tenant) at any time - without any reference to the landlord.

If a tenant is found to be fraudulently claiming HB - the council will "claw-back" the rent from the landlord - and they claim that they have the legal authority to claw it back from ANY other property the landlord owns and which has HB paid on it. Councils have been known to try to claw back a years worth of HB. This is so grossly unfair as to be criminal - why should a landlord be made to lose rent if the tenant has acted fraudulently without the landlord having any knowledge of it ? Councils only claw-back off landlords, as they know it is pointless clawing back off HB tenants - cos they have no money to pay with.

Last autumn Parliament started to consider a new Welfare Bill - under which all rents will be paid to all tenants directly - unless tenants can claim to be "vulnerable" and ask for direct payment to the landlord on the grounds that they cannot manage their own affairs.

Most of my single parent mums tenants just dont want the rent paid to them - "I'd spend it " - they tell me.


The final reason is that HB NEVER pay market rent, and how can a landlord ask a HB tenant for a reasonable rent increase knowing that they cannot afford it ?

We are all victims of an appalling housing policy, which has not substantially changed since the days of "Cathy Come Home"

All these are reasons why some landlords dont want HB tenants.