council homes

lee8040

how comes when applying for a council home they need to know how much you have in savings and how much is in each of your bank accounts? also why do they ask if you have £6000 or above in savings?

is this because if you have over 6k they wont give you one as you have enough for a rented property not on the council?

Riq

Pretty much yeah.

lee8040

do they have ways of checking your accounts?

cranezoe

yeah they will check

geoffky

you would not believe what they can find out about you now...why would you want one if you had 6k in the bank,they are for the economically depressed

blue_monkey_2

Well, we are the economic depressed I guess then. Getting a council house is not that easy. We have a child with ASD (Autism), learning difficulties and behaviour problems and last week we was offered either a) a room in a hostel (shared bathroom and kitchen) or to wait in this house (our long term let is being sold) until the bailiff comes to evict us. Oh yeah, and this is the family home, my 'landlord' is my mother!! This was by council orders. Even though the court ordered us to leave by today we do not have enough points to get anywhere to live.

So far we have had to give in 6 months worth of bank statements from both accounts, a years worth of pay slips plus details of other moneies that have entered the accounts. They want to know who you pay, how much you pay, where the money goes, if you move money between accounts then they will want details of all these other accounts too. if they see you frittering money away then they want to know why. Don't think of trying to hide the money - my husbands mate also in our situation on the council list was questioned onto why he had spent 5k on a car over 5 YEARS ago!! If you have the financial means to rent private then you will have to do this, no if, buts and ands, they make it very difficult and belittle you at every opportunity but if you have money you will not have enough points and the points are what get you housed. The only way of getting 'the most points' is by living in a hostel.

We are on low income, indeed, my husbands basic wage is almost what the monthly rent and council tax is in this area and still we are fighting day in and day out to get somewhere to live. As I say, the court ordered us to leave by today. As you can see we are still here. My mother wants to sell her house (it is for sale but he cannot complete while we are here) and next week she instructs the bailiffs to evict us.

If you have made yourself homeless by any means they will not entertain you at all. This will be by not paying your rent/mortgage or being anti-social and getting evicted, taking a house deliberately too small, the list is endless. We will have no choice on where we live, one choice and that is it and unless we get a transfer that will be it for life. If we could rent private then we would, but we can't and beggars can't be choosers and all that.

If you have money in the bank you'l be expected to rent in the private sector, once the money runs out you can claim housing benefit though, but landlords will not take on a new AST if you are on housing benefit now, they want the security that they will get paid and they do not get insurance if the tenant is on HB.

Its long winded and a very long road, we dearly wish we had the money and financial means to rent private as the way the housing people speak to you is a disgrace and they make it as hard as possible for you at every turn.

I have a long running thread going just outlining on how hard this has been for us, just to get to this stage it has aken 5 months and we do not have anything in the bank - we are both overdrawn and our money goes down next month. If you are interested I generally post everything to do with it on here: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=676147

sassybooboos

geoffky wrote: »

you would not believe what they can find out about you now...why would you want one if you had 6k in the bank,they are for the economically depressed

i think that is a bit of a snobby attitude.

council houses are good sized houses and the rent is usually cheaper than renting private and all the repairs are included in the rent you pay.

so who are the mugs people who get a mortgage and work their selves to death to pay it and to pay for repairs etc or these so called economically depressed.

poppy10_2

[STRIKE]If all your savings are in ISAs they won't count towards means testing.[/STRIKE]

fuzzgun19

cranezoe wrote: »

yeah they will check

Can they only check how much you have in, if you have given them account numbers?

Or can they check how many accounts/which bank if you haven't told them?

poppy10_2

fuzzgun19 wrote: »

Can they only check how much you have in, if you have given them account numbers?

Or can they check how many accounts/which bank if you haven't told them?

They don't need your account number, your national insurance number is linked to all your accounts, plus they can just search by name and address.

bajangal

fuzzgun19 wrote: »

Can they only check how much you have in, if you have given them account numbers?

Or can they check how many accounts/which bank if you haven't told them?

If you don't tell them and they find out, then you are going to be in trouble. They will also want to SEE approx 3 months bank statements. They will want to know about any large sums of money going in to the account. If you are desperate for Council housing, then be upfront with them. The consequences of being found out will mean being struck off the list with no further help from them.