Housing Benefit Overpayment

parkrunner

WhenIam64 wrote: »

I read it as 7 months money for a 6 month contract. 6 months have been paid by HB and the 7th by the OP.

Has six months been paid by HB though, it is paid in arrears so it depends on when the tenancy ended.

WhenIam64

Again it is the effect and not the words. Agree the contract is important but the effect of the 7th month's payment is what is under scrutiny.

The first question is whether there has been an overpayment by the Council. The second one is has the landlord defrauded the council by taking 7 payments instead of 6. Breaking it down further, is the landlord entitled to keep the 7th payment and under what contractual term. Lastly if the 7th payment belongs to someone, who does it belong to and why.

Words are there to be interpreted and the best way to get clarity is to go through the court process. The OP should not shrink from issuing a pre-action letter and then following through. And he should also include a claim for compensation for not protecting the "deposit" as that is what the purpose of the first payment was.

Following it through the claims process is simple, cheap and straightforward.

Galway

The landlord this week will have had 6 payments of housing benefit, this is added to the first payment that I made myself direct to the landlord but through the letting agent. It was paid with the deposit in one lump, the deposit was £700 the first months rent in advance was £800 so a bank transfer of £1500.

This was followed by 6 payments from housing benefit, I checked in the deposit scheme and only the £700 is lodged in there.

This means that the landlord will of had 7 months rent for a six month lease.

As this was paid to the letting agent who then passed it on are they my first base for a claim?

WhenIam64

who then passed it on

This is where the pre-action letter comes in. You send the letter giving 14, 21 or 30 days stating the issues as you see them and inviting them to sort the issue. You are giving them the chance to sort it, or state why they are not sorting it. Explain the next step is court.

If you don't get an answer you are happy with, then it MoneyClaimOnline which is a simple process.

https://moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

tboo

Galway wrote: »

The landlord this week will have had 6 payments of housing benefit, this is added to the first payment that I made myself direct to the landlord but through the letting agent. It was paid with the deposit in one lump, the deposit was £700 the first months rent in advance was £800 so a bank transfer of £1500.

This was followed by 6 payments from housing benefit, I checked in the deposit scheme and only the £700 is lodged in there.

This means that the landlord will of had 7 months rent for a six month lease.

As this was paid to the letting agent who then passed it on are they my first base for a claim?

Your tenancy was for 6 months
You paid 1 month rent in advance



6 payments to the landlord is only 24 weeks of HB so that is 2 weeks short for the 6 monthly payments


1 month rent in advance means you are technically owed around 2 weeks rent
but

Was your HB per week the same as your rent per week (£184.62)? Was there a shortfall to pay?


If there was then the landlord could be correct in not paying anything back


Please confirm what your HB was per week