Private sector Rent set higher than LHA

HappyMJ

bobbieg wrote: »

The house is owned by a private landlord but rented to the council who rent it to me, so the council are named as my landlord on the tenancy agreement. It is a property they put us in to discharge their responsibility to us when we were homeless.

The rent is actually £25 per week higher than the LHA, this is before any benefit is taken into consideration. Rent is £258 per week and LHA is £233.

Is there a reason you must live in such a high cost area?

Come up to where I live (Midlands) and you can rent a nice modern 3 bedroom semi detached house with gardens, off road parking, appliances included and you can get a job working with the NHS. You will have more than enough cash left over each week.

The rent on the 3 bedroom property that I let out is half what you're paying and it's a very nice property with no issues. There's plenty of property at that price point available in the area. LHA is £123/week for a 3 bedroom house so there would still be some shortfall to pay but not as much.

pmlindyloo

bobbieg wrote: »

The house is owned by a private landlord but rented to the council who rent it to me, so the council are named as my landlord on the tenancy agreement. It is a property they put us in to discharge their responsibility to us when we were homeless.

The rent is actually £25 per week higher than the LHA, this is before any benefit is taken into consideration. Rent is £258 per week and LHA is £233.

Have you ever applied for a Discretionary Housing Payment?

Are you getting all the benefits that you are eligible for?

Have you tried putting your details into the calculator on https://www.entitledto.co.uk and playing around with different scenarios - working full time/different hours etc

Have you reduced all your expenditure to an absolute minimum - utility bills etc ?

Are you receiving child support?

Go over to the Debtfree Wannabe forum and put up a statement of affairs so that the good people there can help you.

Reading your previous threads you obviously have been through the ***** so you may just be asking about LHA rates as a discussion point and have all your finances under control so forgive me if I have told you things you already know!

Will find a link about repairs for you and post.:)

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/repairs_and_bad_conditions/repairs_in_social_housing/reporting_and_allowing_access

bobbieg

Thanks for your replies.
Yes I've put a lot of effort into my finances over the last year and we are in a considerably better place than we were a year ago. I don't receive any child support.
The post has actually come about as I have been wondering about changing my working hours and was going to run a few scenarios through the calculators to see what difference it may make for me to work different hours.
That was how come I was looking at Lha and rents.
Yes just quite often think how much cheaper it would be for me to rent further up the country but I do mainly stay here as my mum helps me out with the children when I need it.
I think I'm going to compose an email to the council and enclose photos of everything that is causing a problem and go from there.
I've not listed everything here, the disposal drain for the washing machine is blocked and overflows in the front garden (this has been 'repaired' already though), there's a family of slugs living under the kitchen cabinets that come out at night and the shower doesn't work (we have a bath) but the guy came round 7 times to repair it always between 7pm and 9pm in the end I told him not to bother.
Thanks for your time taken to reply.

nannytone_2

there is nothing to prevent you putting slug killer down to get rid of the slugs, also you can unblock the drain quite easily sometimes. a blocked drain can write easily be caused by leaves collecting on the grate.

whilst the landlord is responsible for repairs, you also have the responsibility to mitigate your circumstances by taking care of the obvious and not allowing things to deteriorate.

a friends daughter who rents from the housing association thought it was the HA's responsibility to change her light bulbs and to put a drawer front back on after she forced it open because she had put too much into the drawer

FBaby

Is the reason why the rent is much higher than LHA because of the location within the borough?