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

tokenfield

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

Well, S8 is a non starter as there are no arrears, so he will have to rely on S21, 70% of which get thrown out of court. A switched on tenant could easily get 6 months rent free out of this, never mind an odd £400.

Depends if the tenant wants to make himself homeless with a poor reference from his previous landlord.

tokenfield

jacko909090 wrote: »

You could always ask your landlord for an up to date rent statement which should show the payments he has received from you and from HB, don't think he has to provide one by law but you could ask for one?

You might find some useful info in here:

http://england.shelter.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/23390/Private_Tenancies.pdf

Your tenancy agreement should state the total rent due each month and technically if the landlord is receiving HB + top-ups that = more than the monthly rent x 12 he has increased your rent which would be a breach of the agreement.

I don't think the debate is whether he is wrong though as he clearly is but more what you could do. Unfortunately I don't think there would be anything you could do that wouldn't result in you losing your home. You could contact Shelter and ask for some advice.

Have you got a local Housing Association - have you made an application to them??? I presume you have a family as you mention you struggle for childcare so you may be able to get on the waiting list for a property from them? This would give you greater security of tenancy etc?

Tokenfield - it is the OP's money as she has been overpaying her rent for the other 12 months of the year... The amount the landlord would receive is fixed for the 12 months (depending on any change of income etc of tenant) so anything over and above the annual rent - (annual HB amount + tenant payment) = credit due to tenant.

so if the monthly rent was £400 and the weekly HB was £80 this would leave a weekly top up due by the tenant of £12.30:

annual rent due £4800
annual HB paid £4160

Top up should be £640 for the year but if the landlord made the tenant tp up the 4 weekly HB each month then annually the tenant would be paying £960. An overpayment by the tenant of £320.

Of course it is an overpayment that should never have happened. Why didn't the tenant realise what they were letting themselves in for before signing the agreement?

As you say what can the tenant do that won't put the home at risk - not a lot to be honest.

All I can say is that the landlord is one canny individual.

jacko909090

You say canny - I say unscrupulous!

This is why we need to invest more in providing social housing to put landlords like this out of business.. but that is a whole other debate!

lighting_up_the_chalice

tokenfield wrote: »

Depends if the tenant wants to make himself homeless with a poor reference from his previous landlord.

With 6 months rent in their back pocket, I doubt if that would be a huge problem. There's always another greedy fool, your "friend" being a prime case in point.

lighting_up_the_chalice

tokenfield wrote: »

That's the best I have heard of - fraud????

Who has been defrauded? Certainly not the council - they have paid exactly what the tenant was assessed to be entitled to.

It's not theft either. There is a signed agreement for the tenant to pay over £1752 to the landlord in equal instalments of £146 every month.

Try another one.

The good old taxpayer, of course. As you say, they have paid exactly what the tenant was assessed to be entitled to. However, due to the tenants overpayment, there was a reduction in the rental liability of £400.

The OP hasn't mentioned any signed agreement other than the tenancy which stipulates a rental liability of £546 a month.

Linda_D_2

tokenfield wrote: »

If I was a landlord and you a potential tenant - if you came to me with that attitude the answer would be that there is 'no room at the inn' even if the property was empty!

No-one would ever want to rent off someone like you, your attitude on this thread sucks. You really are lowest of the low supporting crook landlords who rip off tenants.

Cate1976

I've just typed a long post, but had to log back in to post it and lost it. I can understand OP asking the question and some of the responses. Short version is that I actually had what I think would be close to actual HB payment dates and tenant's payments. My figures add up to LL receiving £400 extra over the course of a year.

This is one thing that'll be easier when people transfer to Universal Credit, for both LL's and tenant's. It'll make tenants better off financially, using OP as an example with rent of £546 pcm. When transferred to UC, they'll get £433 pcm housing element (£100 x 52) / 12, the difference between housing element & actual rent is £113.

In fact for me, UC will make life easier in a few ways, mostly from a budgeting rather than financial viewpoint.

Nada666

tokenfield wrote: »

The contract is that the tenant will pay 12 top ups throughout the year of £146 each.

Rubbish. His contract is to pay the agreed rent. The tenant is paying in two instalments. The declared and contracted rent will be whatever 12 x calendar month payments is. The landlord is not entitled to more. The landlord has agreed that this can be paid in four-weekly instalments and in separate monthly top-ups. Any payments that take this over the contractual twelve calendar-month rent is a balance on the account that can either be returned by the landlord (unlikely) or more usually accepted as advance payment of some future instalments.

tokenfield

jacko909090 wrote: »

You say canny - I say unscrupulous!

This is why we need to invest more in providing social housing to put landlords like this out of business.. but that is a whole other debate!

Wow, the Red flag of Socialism is flying high tonight.

It will never happen - people want to buy not rent and I see that that is being helped with the new schemes that are on offer thank goodness.

tokenfield

Linda_D wrote: »

No-one would ever want to rent off someone like you, your attitude on this thread sucks. You really are lowest of the low supporting crook landlords who rip off tenants.

Landlords are in business to make profits not to provide a social service.
Like all businesses you take the chances as they come along. Some you lose, some you win.
Nothing crooked at all - they are simply looking to maximise their income.
Maybe you wouldn't, but then if I was the only one that was willing to rent a place to you - what option do you think you have?