Housing benefits paid to landlord, i top it up. what about the '13th' payment?

inklove

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nannytone_2

even if your rent is paid direct to your landlord, you will still have received an award notice.
have you been awarded the full months rent ( minus the £146 top up) every 4 weeks?
if so this would be unusual, as most private landlords charge rent by the calandar month and not 4 weekly.

regardless though, if extra is being paid, it wouldnt be 'your' money, but an overpayment which would need to be repaid to the council

Shelldean

what you need to do it work it out annually, then work it back to calendar monthly.

So multiply your 4 wkly housing benefit by thirteen, then divide it by twelve.

then minus that answer from your monthly rent, the answer to that is what you should top up to your landlord every month.

That's how I work mine out.
Hope you understand.

Shelldean

So if your rent is 546 per mth, and you get £400 HB every four weeks.
the figures work like this....

Annual rent is £546 x 12 = £6552
£400 x 13 = £5200 (annual amount of HB)

So take housing benefit given away from total rent owed
£6552 - £5200 = £1352 this is the amount you are liable for.

So £1352 divided by 12 = £112.66 this is the amount you would pay every mth to top up the rent.


Make sense????

Housing_Benefit_Officer

This is a trick a fair few unscrupulous landlords do to get extra cash frm their tenants.

You needs to work out=

12 x monthly rent payments = total per year
13 x 4 weekly HB payments = total per year
13 x 4 weekly top ups = total per year.

0r is it 12 x monthly top ups?

tokenfield

Shelldean wrote: »

So if your rent is 546 per mth, and you get £400 HB every four weeks.
the figures work like this....

Annual rent is £546 x 12 = £6552
£400 x 13 = £5200 (annual amount of HB)

So take housing benefit given away from total rent owed
£6552 - £5200 = £1352 this is the amount you are liable for.

So £1352 divided by 12 = £112.66 this is the amount you would pay every mth to top up the rent.


Make sense????

I think what the OP is getting at is that the monthly rent is short by £149 a month after the landlord receives the 4 weekly payment from the council.

As such the OP will have paid 12 x £146 in respect of 12 months rent. The 13th period is an extra one and should put her rent account into credit by that 13th payments.

Using your example, the monthly rent is £546. Housing Allowance is paid to the landlord direct every 4 weeks of £400. and the tenant pays the balance of £146

So 12 months rent has been covered by 12 (4 weekly) payments of Housing Allowance and 12 payments from the tenant.

What then happens to the 13th payment of HA?

What you are saying is the correct way to calculate it and in the OP's case would see the £146 a month they pay reduce down by (1/12th x £400) to £112.70 every month which is where you get your figures from.

Nada666

tokenfield wrote: »

I think what the OP is getting at is that the monthly rent is short by £149 a month after the landlord receives the 4 weekly payment from the council.

As such the OP will have paid 12 x £146 in respect of 12 months rent. The 13th period is an extra one and should put her rent account into credit by that 13th payments.

Using your example, the monthly rent is £546. Housing Allowance is paid to the landlord direct every 4 weeks of £400. and the tenant pays the balance of £146

So 12 months rent has been covered by 12 (4 weekly) payments of Housing Allowance and 12 payments from the tenant.

What then happens to the 13th payment of HA?

What you are saying is the correct way to calculate it and in the OP's case would see the £146 a month they pay reduce down by (1/12th x £400) to £112.70 every month which is where you get your figures from.

Okay, I'm confused. That is the same calculation, isn't it? That is just what Shelldean wrote?!?

paddedjohn

Get the rent paid to you from now on and pay it to the LL yourself, cant be scammed then.

Linda_D_2

paddedjohn wrote: »

Get the rent paid to you from now on and pay it to the LL yourself, cant be scammed then.

that is good advice. I'm sorry inklove but your landlord is delibrately ripping you off. Unfortunately there are a lot of crook landlords around

tokenfield

inklove wrote: »

You are all correct, that is how it should be worked out.

However, my landlord refused to accept that calculation or arrangement, he argued that unless he has the full rent of '£546' (as set as the example) then he would not have enough money to pay the mortgage and things and the house would be repossessed, so he would only accept the four weekly payment of housing benefit for each month plus my top up of £146 to make up the full rent amount.

The 13th payment is not an overpayment, I am entitled to that money towards my rent, I can only just afford the top up of £146 each month and if i were to receive the 'extra' payment i would be able to use it towards the top up payments for several months, which would help me out a lot.

I only used the word extra because the way the rent arrangement works it is an 'extra'/13th payment. I used the quotation makes to show that I don't really consider it to be extra, I just used the word for ease.

In my opinion the 13th payment should be given to me, or at least cover my top up rent for three and a bit months, but my landlord obviously doesn't see it that way, and I don't really know what to do about that.

To put it clearer

The landlord has received 13 x £400 (via HB)

---

"

---

12 x £146 (via top up from tenant)

Total received by landlord £6952

Total rent payable for the year 12 x £546 - £6552

Total overpaid to landlord £400 (the 13th HB payment)

This sounds a damn good scheme - I'm surprised that landlords haven't cottoned on to this system - they stand to make the equivalent 'profit' out of the tenant equal to 4 weeks of Housing Benefit every 12 months!

Presumably the OP's landlord will say that this extra £400 is a premium payable because he has a tenant that has to, in the main, rely on HB to pay most of the rent. Not many landlords would want to touch anybody that can't pay their rent fully out of earned income as opposed to benefit income.

Marisco

tokenfield wrote: »

Presumably the OP's landlord will say that this extra £400 is a premium payable because he has a tenant that has to, in the main, rely on HB to pay most of the rent.

Why should he get a premium? The tenant is paying the rent in full each month, where that money comes from should be no business of the LL (so long as it's legal that is!!)