help!! they are trying to evict my grandma!

Silvertabby

Is it possible that your gran's housing benefit isn't the full amount of rent due, hence the arrears?

Do you know

a. How much her rent is

b. How much she receives in housing benefit.

As dippy says, she may not be getting - for whatever reason - the full rent as HB, and your gran may not realise that she may be liable for the rest. It depends on her income.

CAB would be your best point of call for advice on benefits due but, in the meantime, you should be able to find out the weekly rent/ HB payable to see if they tally.

tboo

AS913 wrote: »

hello friendly helpers of moneysavingexpert forum, we could really use some help right now.

My grandma, is in the process of being evicted, due to the council missing payments to her landlord Genesis housing. this has been going on for 2 years. we managed to get it fixed once. and they paid the missing money. but this time it has turned into a £900 debt!!

everytime i ring the council, they say it has been paid. i ring genesis housing and they say they haven't recieved the payments.

Last time this happend they were paying the money into some one elses rent account!!

and when i called the council and told them this. they told me it was impossible.

i think there is some corrupt individual at the council who is siphoning old ladies money into another rent account, as she never had problems untill 2 years ago. and she has lived in this property without any involvement with the council for the past 10 years!!

does anyone have any idea how i can resolve this issue. it makes me upset to see my grandma getting eviction notices and threats from genesis housing over something she has no control of!:(:(:(

How old is your grandmother? - as she may still be in the group of people over 60 that have not attained state pension yet

She also may well get full HB but it may not cover all the rent if there are ineligible service charges - Genesis appear to have service charges but this will be shown on a breakdown which the HB team will have seen. If this is the case then your Grandmother will have to pay these, please see her latest HB notification letter

You can ask the HB team to print out a summary of rent paid and she if there are any gaps, you can then ask why the gaps weren't paid, HB is paid every 4 weeks to a landlord

PasturesNew

tboo wrote: »

How old is your grandmother? .... people over 60...

Indeed, these days a grandmother could be anything from ~35 upwards!

The natural response to seeing "grandma" is to assume she's a little old lady, grey hair, glasses, nice light blue knitted cardigan and comfy slippers..... but that's increasingly the wrong vision.

Alice_Holt

As ampersand says it is highly unlikely eviction will occur, for a vulnerable social tenant in a wheelchair friendly (I assume) property .
To evict there would be a court hearing. The landlord would need to seek a possession order. If payments are being made your Grandma will not be evicted, if there are arrears she will be expected to agree to a repayment plan.
https://www.gov.uk/council-housing-association-evictions/overview
https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/eviction/eviction_of_housing_association_tenants

I would suggest (as others have):
1) Don't panic, calm down and approach this reasonably. Please don't suggest corruption - you need the goodwill of both the HB dept and Genesis to sort this.
2) Contact (with your Grandma) her Housing Officer. Ask for a meeting asap and a copy of her rent statement.
3) Get a copy of the HB calculation from the HB dept, together with a HB statement.
4) Check her benefit / income details are correct on the HB calculation. Is she in receipt of DLA / AA / PIP, and if so is she getting the appropriate disability premiums added to her HB applicable amount.
5) It may be that HB has been paid, but Genesis have not been able to identify the tenant, so it has been placed in a suspense account pending investigation and allocation to the correct tenants account. This can be easily identified if you sit down with the HO with all the relevant documents.
If you have the both the HB and rent statements you can check one against the other, and can soon spot what has gone awry.
Mistakes do happen, but can easily be rectified with a bit of exploration and goodwill.
Try to sort it out before additional admin costs, etc are added to her bill.
6) Get your Grandma to book an appointment with the CAB in case this is needed.
7) I would suggest you wait until you understand what has gone wrong before contacting Grandma's councillor.
8) It may be that your Grandma needs to pay something to Genesis. For instance not all service charges are covered by HB (particularly in sheltered accommodation).

Housing_Benefit_Officer

The Housing Association will receive a lump sum payment for dozens or hundreds of tenants. They will also receive a schedule (both paper and electronically) showing who to allocate the money to. Mistakes happen when the landlord either sends the money to the wrong rent account or doesn't transfer the money.