Good Old Fergus!

The_White_Horse

why can't housing benefit be paid straight to the landlord?

casperlarue

The_White_Horse wrote: »

why can't housing benefit be paid straight to the landlord?

because our wonderful government (don't know if it was the current one or the last lot) decided that benefit claimants should be responsible for paying their own rent so the HB payment goes to them, supposedly to be passed on to the landlord.

However, speaking from personal experience as a LL, £484 hb paid into a tenants bank account is very tempting to hem..... and not to be passed on as rent.

Once a tenant is 8 weeks in arrears the landlord can apply to have the HB paid direct to them, but the missing 8 weeks money generally doesn't reappear.

dktreesea

The_White_Horse wrote: »

why can't housing benefit be paid straight to the landlord?

Even if that was still possible, i.e. no Universal Credit coming along, there's still the possibility that housing benefit can be stopped or reduced at any time. What if the housing benefit has become, due to various policy changes, insufficient to cover the rent? Maybe if the tenant was working, they could divert some of their income to cover the shortfall. But a tenant with no earned income of their own is unlikely to be able to afford to do that.

This tale of woe is a cautionary tale for landlords, and that is a tenant who was wanting to move out. Note that the council advised the tenant not to vacate the property.
http://www.landlordlawblog.co.uk/2012/10/09/evicting-housing-benefit-tenants-kates-story/
What if the tenant hadn't vacated? Then it's back to the courts to get a possession order - you can't physically evict a person who's not willing to move on; only the courts can do that. Meanwhile you might not be seeing any rent at all, keeping in mind it's the tenant, rather than the council, handing it over to the landlord.

Loughton_Monkey

danothy wrote: »

Firstly, you can't fall 50% into arrears, that'd be like digging half a hole. You are either in arrears or you aren't.

Secondly, an individual tenant's binary possibility state of being in arrears or not does not equate to a 50% chance of that tenant falling into arrears. Each tenant will have their own circumstances in and out of their control that will dictate their own percentage risk of falling into arrears.

Thirdly, any subset of all tenants you care to pick will have a risk that is an aggregate of the individual risks. If you are intelligent about how you pick those subsets you group them by similarity of circumstance (and therefore influencing factors). As such the group risk of falling into arrears (a parameter that is more easily and accurately measurable than for an individual) will be representative of each of the individuals in it. This is the risk you act on. But it's not necessarily 50%, and it's not the same for everyone.

Being mathemeticians, I'm sure the Wilsons would understand all this. I fully suspect he understands the concept of sampling error and is working purely on two samples of his own 'population' which consists of 800 people in work, and 200 benefits seekers. A zero percent in arrears for one sample, and a 51% in arrears for the smaller sample tells him that the smaller sample are, statistically, a bunch of losers.

To break down that small sample into sub-samples would introduce an unacceptable level of error, which leads him to the conclusion that the 200 have to go.

A more interesting mathematic problem arises when all 1,000 tenants believe (but don't know) that Fergus Wilson is a complete !!!!!!. This may well give a high credibility for the assertion that he is a !!!!!!, but there's very little they can do about it!

mayonnaise

casperlarue wrote: »

Once a tenant is 8 weeks in arrears the landlord can apply to have the HB paid direct to them, but the missing 8 weeks money generally doesn't reappear.

That's shocking. We urgently need more rental regulation to protect our landlords.

ruggedtoast

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/fergus-wilson-the-landlord-who-wants-to-put-200-families-out-on-the-street-9052651.html

In an interview that went viral, Mr Wilson told Channel 4: “I feel sorry for battered wives who have come to us because we’re very much consigning them to go back to their husbands to be beaten up again.” When asked if he had exercised any moral judgement over the eviction of impoverished tenants from his homes, he said: “The only judgement we exercise is a financial judgement”.

Although:

It seems his reasons may not be entirely financial, however, as he admits that in some cases the council has asked him not to evict tenants and offered to pay for the arrears. Describing one case, he says: “The council said we will pay for the arrears if you let her stay...but I think it’s wrong to reward wrongdoing, and not paying your rent is wrongdoing.”

Loughton_Monkey

I wonder if we get the whole truth here.

According to the Independent piece, the deed has virtually been done and Fergus only has the last 6 tenants on benefits left.

Chris Coffey, head of community services at local homeless charity Porchlight, said: “We’re really disappointed to see any landlord – particularly a landlord on that scale – reach that decision [to evict those on benefits]... I really believe more people will become homeless [as a result of Wilson’s decision]. The number of landlords letting to housing benefit tenants is going down.”

However, Mr Wilson said this was “nonsense” and that the majority of the 200 had already left their homes last year, leaving just six who are leaving now.

And far from 'having a go' at Fergus, the Charity guy only uses the word "disappointed" [above] and then goes on to explain that it's really the government's fault....

Mr Coffey believes the Wilsons’ decision could be a result of changes to Government policy. He said: “It looks like this is a response to Universal Credit coming in over the next few years and there are a lot of fears about rent arrears building. The pilots have shown that arrears do build and landlords are not reassured that the government has protection in place.”

The government remain unrepentant....

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said Universal Credit did not change the situation for landlords. “Landlords always complain about direct payments and always have done. We say it’s better for tenants to pay their own rent because it’s good to get in that habit for when they have a job.”

If (when UC is fully rolled out) that attitude brings about [as I think it is likely to] wholesale defaulting with the result that thousands of tenants are evicted and 'sent back' to the housing department, I think another U-turn might be in the offing.

I assume the Indie's legal department were happy to use the words "one of Britain’s most obnoxious landlords" despite the risk of being sued by Fergus. It would be interesting to see the outcome. Personally I think the defense of "fair comment" would be valid.

grizzly1911

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

I assume the Indie's legal department were happy to use the words "one of Britain’s most obnoxious landlords" despite the risk of being sued by Fergus. It would be interesting to see the outcome. Personally I think the defense of "fair comment" would be valid.

What is defamatory about the word obnoxious, it is pretty woolly and subjective? Some seem to view it is a "badge of honour" on here.

gazter

casperlarue wrote: »

because our wonderful government (don't know if it was the current one or the last lot) decided that benefit claimants should be responsible for paying their own rent so the HB payment goes to them, supposedly to be passed on to the landlord.

However, speaking from personal experience as a LL, £484 hb paid into a tenants bank account is very tempting to hem..... and not to be passed on as rent.

Once a tenant is 8 weeks in arrears the landlord can apply to have the HB paid direct to them, but the missing 8 weeks money generally doesn't reappear.

It really infuriates me that people think infantilizing benefit recipients does them any good. There will be exceptions, for people with learning difficulties etc where a reasoned argument can be used to give rent direct to landlord.

People on benefits are not stupid, they arent children, they arent mentally incapable. It is a very important lesson we only tend to need to learn once. If you dont pay your rent/mortgage you get evicted.

Why does someone who works at tescos, on probably a pretty similar income, to a person on benefits in receipt of housing benefit, be considered capable of paying their rent on time, but not the other?

If a tenant fails to pay their rent, resulting in eviction the housing department at the local council can quite rightly tell them where to go.

Loughton_Monkey

gazter wrote: »

It really infuriates me that people think infantilizing benefit recipients does them any good. There will be exceptions, for people with learning difficulties etc where a reasoned argument can be used to give rent direct to landlord.

People on benefits are not stupid, they arent children, they arent mentally incapable. It is a very important lesson we only tend to need to learn once. If you dont pay your rent/mortgage you get evicted.

Why does someone who works at tescos, on probably a pretty similar income, to a person on benefits in receipt of housing benefit, be considered capable of paying their rent on time, but not the other?

If a tenant fails to pay their rent, resulting in eviction the housing department at the local council can quite rightly tell them where to go.

If your last paragraph was correct, then I would agree with you 100%.

The trouble is that they are by law obliged to rehouse or do something with these people.

Making a child go to bed at 8 pm. is treating them like a child. Ignoring the fact that they are still playing around at 9 pm. despite 15 warnings is 'teaching' them that you don't mean what they say and therefore they don't have to go to bed at 8 p.m. whatever you say.

If the Nanny State wishes to grant leeway time, and time, and time again in its own council houses, then that's bad enough. But why expect a private landlord to have to suffer the substantial loss of income involved over the lengthy eviction process?

When we, as adults, go to work and earn money, we have no choice that HMRC "take" income tax from your earnings. This is not treating the population like children. It's just doing the easiest, most robust, and natural thing to do. Greece chose a different system which explains partly the mess they are in.