Landlord failed to inform tenant LHA increase

biggysmaller

FreeBear said:

A_Lert said: If neither of these are the case then your landlord must repay you the overpaid rent but hasn't done anything wrong and has no further liability.

Morally, if he was in receipt of an increased LHA payment, one would hope that he would advise the tenant that any top up payments should be reduced. If he had been pestering the OP for the same amount of top up despite an increase of LHA rate, he should be brought to account.

This is exactly what he was doing, regularly asking for the full top up amount having checked his statements to see if ithad been transfered. 
There is a law there which I am sure has been broken because the council put him in a position  of trust, and he was dishonest by his ommision that he was in recept of more rent than he was contractually allowed to receive. 
As before, The Fraud Act 2006, Section 4. 
And thank you, morally it stinks and he should be bought to account. 

csgohan4

biggysmaller said:

FreeBear said:

A_Lert said: If neither of these are the case then your landlord must repay you the overpaid rent but hasn't done anything wrong and has no further liability.

Morally, if he was in receipt of an increased LHA payment, one would hope that he would advise the tenant that any top up payments should be reduced. If he had been pestering the OP for the same amount of top up despite an increase of LHA rate, he should be brought to account.

This is exactly what he was doing, regularly asking for the full top up amount having checked his statements to see if ithad been transfered. 
There is a law there which I am sure has been broken because the council put him in a position  of trust, and he was dishonest by his ommision that he was in recept of more rent than he was contractually allowed to receive. 
As before, The Fraud Act 2006, Section 4. 
And thank you, morally it stinks and he should be bought to account. 

If your owed money what do you think you should do? Hint, it's already been posted?
 As with prev posters you have a path forward, complaining about it despite being told what to do is not going to make things right is it?

Either way, looks like your going to find another place

Chavy89

i dunno but to me morally and legally are not the same, but what do i or anyone else in here who has tryed to explain this to you know  

biggysmaller

csgohan4 said:

biggysmaller said:

FreeBear said:

A_Lert said: If neither of these are the case then your landlord must repay you the overpaid rent but hasn't done anything wrong and has no further liability.

Morally, if he was in receipt of an increased LHA payment, one would hope that he would advise the tenant that any top up payments should be reduced. If he had been pestering the OP for the same amount of top up despite an increase of LHA rate, he should be brought to account.

This is exactly what he was doing, regularly asking for the full top up amount having checked his statements to see if ithad been transfered. 
There is a law there which I am sure has been broken because the council put him in a position  of trust, and he was dishonest by his ommision that he was in recept of more rent than he was contractually allowed to receive. 
As before, The Fraud Act 2006, Section 4. 
And thank you, morally it stinks and he should be bought to account. 

If your owed money what do you think you should do? Hint, it's already been posted?
 As with prev posters you have a path forward, complaining about it despite being told what to do is not going to make things right is it?

Either way, looks like your going to find another place

Putting my position aside  I am concerned for other tenants who may be in the same position as I was. There ar e laws there to protect the public from this type of behaviour , and threatening me with evxition WILL NOT  stop me persuing this. He has to be bought to account. 

.. 
Thanks you for you replies. 

[Deleted User]

There are some important points you are not taking on board.

Your landlord was not managing your money, he was not in a position of trust.  He was not your appointee or guardian.  He was just your LL, receiving money towards the rent from the council.  Yes he had a small responsibility to do his accounts properly unfortunately many LL's don't (and from what you say he has more than one property). 

BUT so did you.  You did not hand over your responsibility to make sure rent was paid appropriately.  You received letters from the council saying what your HLA was once a year.  You ignored it.  You could have checked the LHA in your area for an  x bedroom property in seconds.  You don't sound like someone who can't handle this kind of thing from your posts.  If you couldn't, you should have someone helping you with your finances.  I don't see you mention that this has been put in place.

Quite frankly, with tens of thousands of HLA accounts, and thousands of vulnerable tenants, the council will just be glad you aren't on their housing needs list.  They will come down on someone who is housing 30 people in a two bed house, but rarely.  I'm afraid they will do very little about this LL.  Maybe a brief letter telling him to pay you back, if you are lucky.  Don't expect any more.  They don't have the resources to chase after every LL who owes a few hundred quid to a tenant who is taking quite a few tenants off their housing list.

Try and bear this in mind.  Yes it is upsetting what has happened, I hope you get back the money owed, but you are overstating your case.  Its is very important to you but small pie to your Housing Department.  They won't harrass your LL, they can't afford to, they need him to house people.

I am speaking as someone who also had to swallow some hard truths when I was a tenant with a LL who did what he could to take advantage.  But it has to be said, inspite of health problems, various crisis going on with my special needs kids that drove me up the wall more often than not, I always knew what LHA was, checked if it was changing and got the calculator out to check what I needed to pay.., I had to, I needed the money if there was a change in my favour.  As I have said, if you can't do that, you need to have all your finances managed by someone else.  I suspect you can.  You have responsibilities too, and I suspect a court will find this too.

Hasbeen

Well said! Have read this with interest and hope OP takes all on board and in future tries to take more responsibility.

Unfortunately many people are unable to do this. And are classed under Health and Social work as "Additionals"  they need extra help, to basically do most things. So Op should also make use of any resources available?

Shelldean

biggysmaller said:

I think it best to wait for the the local authority to reply to me. Yes, I should be grateful to a landlord who has ripped me off for the last year when he was in receipt of more money that he declared to me!!!
You are oxrrect, the top up rent was my responsibility. However, the receipt of housing benefit was his responsibility. 

I have only got as far as this post so apologies of what i say has been said!!!
When i was receiving HB i also had it paid straight to my LL, as when i started on HB many many moons ago this was only option. 
My rent was also more than the benefits. So we also topped up.
Every financial year without fail i would get a benefits letter from the council telling me what amount of benefits i would be getting for the new financial year. I then worked out what my share would be!
If my account fell in too bigger arrears, which happened as due to the way HB was paid every four weeks, whereas rent was billed monthly. LL would write to me and tell me i was in arrears, but only ever stated the overdue amount not the specific amount that i paid each month.
Then if the arrears were my fault I'd pay what i owed other times I'd explain that it was because i got 13 HB payments per year, so theyjust  had to wait for HB to catch up.

But because i received the letter detailing the amount of benefit I'd be receiving I'd know and it was my problem to adjust the amount i paid for my share.
So did you receive an annual benefits letter? If not your issue is with the council not the landlord! 
Did the landlord actually say your payment of £XX hasnt been paid? Cos if he asked for your usual amount then he was naughty!
But if like my landlord said you are £XX in arrears and you just assumed he wanted his usual payment then he's done nothing wrong!

anyway sorry for the essay!!!

Bossypants

biggysmaller said:

I am sorry to harp on about the legal aspect of this matter. But how does this not apply under the Fraud Act 2006 I this matter? 

Fraud by abuse of position (Section 4)

The defendant: 

• occupies a position in which he was expected to safeguard, or not to act against, the financial interests of another person 
• abused that position 
• dishonestly 
• intending by that abuse to make a gain/cause a loss

The abuse may consist of an omission rather than an act.

Others have given you a great deal of valuable feelback, but just to address this point: The reason it does not apply is because a landlord does NOT occupy the type of position required by the first bullet. Your relationship is a contractual one between equal parties from the law's point of view, so your claim fails at the first hurdle.

That said, he should return the overpayment.

Comms69

biggysmaller said:

No I was not inforned by the local authority of the increase. 

Fraud by abuse of position (Section 4)

The defendant: 

• occupies a position in which he was expected to safeguard, or not to act against, the financial interests of another person 
• abused that position 
• dishonestly 
• intending by that abuse to make a gain/cause a loss

The abuse may consist of an omission rather than an act.

There is a case to answer for with the above law. 

The landlord does not occupy such a position. The law refers to for example foster parents, trustees, carers etc. 

oldbikebloke

biggysmaller said:

You think that funny do you? That I was unable to look after my own financial affairs due to mental and physical disabilities. The responsibility to take the rent from the council was his agreement. Now what else do you find funny?... That I can type?

funny in the sense that you are sufficiently competent to a) find a social media forum, b) register on it, c) work out how to create a new thread on it (without replying to someones else's post as some "newbies" do), d) can look up and quote aspects of UK law  BUT e) are apparently unable to manage your finances?

sounds like you need a competent person to help you - have you asked for a social worker to assist you ? If you get one, they will point out that:
-  no "abuse of person" law has been breached since that does not apply to your circumstances;
- the council does not owe you a duty of care over the management of your own finances; and
- your have a tenancy agreement with the LL, that agreement stipulates the amount of rent payable. You are therefore entitled to sue the LL for any over payment you have made which the LL has failed to return.