Council Tax Support denied because rent was paid 6 months in advance.

bilabonga

The Council included rent paid 6 months in advance as part of the capital and because of that they did not award the Council Tax Support for several months. They claimed that this was included, because the tenant allegedly was not required to pay this far in advance.

However, the rent had to be paid in advance for 6 months, as otherwise the landlord would not rent it, and that accommodation was the only one at that time, which was suitable to rent for a disabled person (it was on the ground floor without any steps), so there was no choice really. That disabled tenant would have become homeless if he did not rent that accommodation.

Have there been any successful appeals against such Councils decisions?

Guest101

bilabonga wrote: »

The Council included rent paid 6 months in advance as part of the capital and because of that they did not award the Council Tax Support for several months. They claimed that this was included, because the tenant allegedly was not required to pay this far in advance.

However, the rent had to be paid in advance for 6 months, as otherwise the landlord would not rent it, and that accommodation was the only one at that time, which was suitable to rent for a disabled person (it was on the ground floor without any steps), so there was no choice really. That disabled tenant would have become homeless if he did not rent that accommodation.

Have there been any successful appeals against such Councils decisions?

The council have a point to be honest. The tenant presumebly can afford the monthly rent. Therefore now has 6 months to accumulate it back. That is capital.

HappyMJ

bilabonga wrote: »

The Council included rent paid 6 months in advance as part of the capital and because of that they did not award the Council Tax Support for several months. They claimed that this was included, because the tenant allegedly was not required to pay this far in advance.

However, the rent had to be paid in advance for 6 months, as otherwise the landlord would not rent it, and that accommodation was the only one at that time, which was suitable to rent for a disabled person (it was on the ground floor without any steps), so there was no choice really. That disabled tenant would have become homeless if he did not rent that accommodation.

Have there been any successful appeals against such Councils decisions?

The entire 6 months would not count. The deposit, fees and first month is obviously due and payable so only 5 months would count in the first month of the claim then in the second month 4 months would count and so on....

Is this just council tax support? Is there also a claim for housing benefit?

Assuming no other capital the rent needs to be quite high for it to count and start reducing benefits.

bilabonga

Guest101 wrote: »

The council have a point to be honest. The tenant presumebly can afford the monthly rent. Therefore now has 6 months to accumulate it back. That is capital.

Most of the money paid for 6 months rent was borrowed from family memeber, so it cannot be accumulated back.

bilabonga

HappyMJ wrote: »

The entire 6 months would not count. The deposit, fees and first month is obviously due and payable so only 5 months would count in the first month of the claim then in the second month 4 months would count and so on....

Is this just council tax support? Is there also a claim for housing benefit?

Assuming no other capital the rent needs to be quite high for it to count and start reducing benefits.

The savings (not including the rent paid in advance) were about £2000 less than the £6000 limit (I do not know if that was the limit for CT, but it appears so).
Those £4000 savings were paid as compensation for moving out from the previous accommodation where the landlord passed away. His death caused in the end that the disabled tenant had to move out (the mortgage lender possessed the premises some time after landlords death).

Because of that I wonder if [FONT=&quot]the article 10 of The Housing Benefit Regulations, SHEDULE 6 can be used (any sum paid in consequence of loss of the home is to be disregarded).
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]However, they agreed to pay only after moving out, so that amount could not be used to pay for 6 months rent in advance. Most of the money was borrowed from a family member to pay that. So should they include such money?[/FONT]

Because of the death of the landlord it was not possible to provide a reference from that landlord and that is why the new landlord demanded 6 months rent in advance, as he could not get the insurance to guarantee that his rent will be paid in case when tenant would not pay.

HB also was claimed.

silvercar

Those £4000 savings were paid as compensation for moving out from the previous accommodation where the landlord passed away. His death caused in the end that the disabled tenant had to move out (the mortgage lender possessed the premises some time after landlords death).

Normally if your property is repossessed the mortgage lender takes over as landlord and the tenancy continues. It is natural that the lender then takes the steps to secure the property at the end of the tenancy. If the lender and tenant are able to agree a compensation package for the tenant to leave early, then the tenant would have agreed to it willingly, having first analysed the implications. Indeed the payment of £4000 suggests that the tenant received sufficient compensation to be agreeable to the deal.

Because of the death of the landlord it was not possible to provide a reference from that landlord and that is why the new landlord demanded 6 months rent in advance, as he could not get the insurance to guarantee that his rent will be paid in case when tenant would not pay.

The lender in repossession would have been the last landlord. It isn't necessary to have a reference for rent insurance, that relies on credit checking and income verification of the tenant. In this case I suspect that it was lack of income that failed the rent insurance criteria.

bilabonga

silvercar wrote: »

the tenant would have agreed to it willingly

The tenant insisted on continuing renting that property (they did rent it for a while for him), but they did not agree, they wanted to sell it.
They said that they would enforce repossession, if the tenant did not move out willingly, so the tenant did not really agree to it willingly, he was rather forced to it.

Anyway, does that compensation qualify as the capital to be disregarded?

silvercar wrote: »

The lender in repossession would have been the last landlord. It isn't necessary to have a reference for rent insurance, that relies on credit checking and income verification of the tenant. In this case I suspect that it was lack of income that failed the rent insurance criteria.

Perhaps. The landlord and his agent did not wait to see what would be the insurer's decision, as it took for them an unusually long time to come to any decision at all, so they proposed 6 months payment in advance and the tenant agreed.

KRB2725

I am a bit confused by this thread, so ignore me if I have got the wrong end of the stick.

If the 6 months advance rent was borrowed, has this been repaid from the 4000 compensation? If not, I can see why it would be looked at as capital.

How much is the rent? If the borrowing has been repaid, then there will be little, if any of the 4K left, therefore does the prepaid rent and any remainder equate to more than the allowed £6000 savings?

bilabonga

emmatthews wrote: »

I am a bit confused by this thread, so ignore me if I have got the wrong end of the stick.

If the 6 months advance rent was borrowed, has this been repaid from the 4000 compensation? If not, I can see why it would be looked at as capital.

How much is the rent? If the borrowing has been repaid, then there will be little, if any of the 4K left, therefore does the prepaid rent and any remainder equate to more than the allowed £6000 savings?

4000 was still on the account at the time of claiming CT Support. Can the Council consider the fact that the tenant was in debt to the family member for paying for him that 6 months rent in advance? There was also some debit on credit card account. But the application form for HB and CT benefits did not have any fields to include information about debts, so the Council is not aware of them.
The rent for 6 months was £3570.