Checks needed for DSS / LHA tenant?

Checks needed for DSS / LHA tenant?

13:53 PM, 19th January 2015, About 10 years ago 121

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Hi everyone,

I have found a family that I want to rent my house to and they will be claiming the local LHA allowance for a 4 bedroom property in North London. Currently they are in temporary accommodation as they were made homeless due to previous landlord wishing to sell the property they were in. Checks needed for DSS LHA tenant

Now my question is; does anyone know the best procedure to safe guard myself when letting my property to them?

For example my understanding is that we will sign the AST but will not know for certain what rent the council will pay her untill they make a housing benefit claim and I am supposed to go with them when they do this. Is it right that any shortfall will be made up by the tenant as top up?

I understand they have a rough estimate of the claim but its not exact.

In my instance the 4 bed LHA rate is £1,667 per month which the family tell me they should get most of due to their circumstances. My worry was that if I get the AST signed and take their 1 month deposit (which I will safeguard), will I be up sh*t creek if there benefit claim backfires and they dont get it or get much less ???

I really like the family and I dont get any bad feeling from them but that can sometimes be a sign to take extra care!!

Any advice about safety checks or standard procedures when dealing in the DSS/LHA market would be greatly appreciated as I really could do without messing up!

Many thanks

Cheers

Joel Herne


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Jonathan Clarke

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20:42 PM, 4th February 2015, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Robert Mellors" at "04/02/2015 - 14:48":

Hi Robert

Good points. I agree you are at the mercy of under trained council staff who simply do not know their own rules and regs or sometimes are so overwhelmed with their workload that they make basic mistakes. I`ve lost count of the times they have failed to carry out their statutory duty

When the new housing regs came in in 2011 my council was seemingly completely unaware of its contents and in fact denied their existence. . I cut and pasted the relevant regs from the goverment website to show them and they apologised and subsequently amended their forms as a result to include a new appropriate section pertaining to direct payment.

Partly because of these type of errors I keep an unconscious extra contingency fund to cope with the shortfall while they get their act sorted out.

On my AST I put.....

``This tenancy is only granted on the proviso that any LHA payments from the council to the tenant are made payable direct to the Landlord` Mr J. Clarke - Landlord I.D. *****. Without this the tenancy is invalid``

I`ve never tested it in court and I`m sure yes you would still need a court order so there is no way around that but in my view it forms part of the tenancy agreement to which the tenant signs up to. That means the council and the tenant has to take heed of it. It is the document that permits after all the council to pay rent to me in the first place. They cant I believe select just the part that suits them. If the council pays to the tenant by mistake or by design then they are permitting and instigating a deliberate breech of my AST and should be held to account

I accept that the invalidity aspect could be challenged by the tenant / council in court so i would be interested to see if there have been any test cases along the same lines.

As a side tangent...... The council once moved one of my LHA tenants into a safe house with 24hrs notice. She was suffering from serious domestic violence. Ive no problem of course with that from a safety angle but they didnt tell me and then cut the benefit dead. I challenged that and said they caused her to breech her tenancy agreement by not allowing her to give me the required months notice. It went to appeal I won and they gave me 4 weeks LHA even though she had left the property

Councils as I`m sure you are aware often act with an air of arrogance and a sense of impunity. I like to hold them to account where I can
.

Sharon Betton

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12:25 PM, 20th February 2015, About 10 years ago

The threads, as always, are interesting, but I have serious doubts about saying that a tenancy agreement that specifies that the rent should be paid direct to the landlord will succeed when universal credit is brought on board. One of the main differences, not under Universal Credit, but since LHA was introduced in 2007, was that neither a landlord or tenant had the right to ask for the rent to be paid direct. This will almost certainly be implemented in a much harder manner under UC. With the invalid tenancy agreement if rent is not paid direct, most landlords would expect some rent in advance from a new tenant, even the benefit dependent, and this in itself would establish a valid tenancy, I think. If no rent in advance is paid, then perhaps there is an argument that the tenant is living there illegally. Would this not require a notice to quit to end the occupation and then a Court order, should the tenant remain?

tony tony

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12:47 PM, 20th February 2015, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Sharon Betton" at "20/02/2015 - 12:25":

ive been reningt to the lha market for over 15 years and i have always had the rent paid direct to me , it will be the same when uc comes in ,its all about having the right stratergy and knowing the system

Kulasmiley

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21:46 PM, 20th February 2015, About 10 years ago

Tony, "what strategy, what systems are you proposing then?. Universal Credit - it's gonna give me nightmares, it already is!! It might even push me further away from HB tenants, I don't want to, BUT if I lose even one month's rent, then that's enough to strategise my way outta HB!!

tony tony

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12:02 PM, 21st February 2015, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "AA Properties Wales " at "20/02/2015 - 21:46":

get your tennants to sign up to a credit union and have there benefit paid to it , also give them a section 21 and explain that you are safe guarding yourself agianst any non payment of rent , if they wont sign up to a credit union just get rid anyway and find someone who will .

Jonathan Clarke

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20:14 PM, 21st February 2015, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Sharon Betton" at "20/02/2015 - 12:25":

My AST has worked for mje for the past 4 years backed by the local councils direct payment form section C and The amended government housing benefit regulations which came into force in 2011. Before that I had template docs to deal with vulnerability factors to enable direct payment. What happened in 2007 is in the history books now and long been superseded in my area by various regulation and local policy changes

As Tony rightly says you have to do your homework and understand the system .
I echo his responses .

On the horizon yes is UC
I too will use the local Credit Union. Some will be using other facilitators eg Tasker payments http://www.taskerpaymentservices.co.uk/about/

Problems will always arise and problems are solved .

LHA is a proven business model. If the figures work for you in your chosen investment area then one shouldn`t get unduly distracted or put off I believe by the everyday mechanics of it.
.

tony tony

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9:11 AM, 28th February 2015, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "AA Properties Wales " at "20/02/2015 - 21:46":

i have been told on good authority that u/credit wont efect any tennants that are already on lha benefits as long as they are on tax credits, esa , and living as a family unit etc untill at least 2018 (existing claimants}

ameliahartman

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5:37 AM, 5th June 2019, About 5 years ago

Obfuscated Data

Jonathan Clarke

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7:12 AM, 5th June 2019, About 5 years ago

Reply to the comment left by ameliahartman at 05/06/2019 - 05:37
`` Babies under the age of 3 are not automatically entitled to their own room``

Where is the legislation that states that please? Mine are all paid on the day of birth . In several circumstances they also pay whilst in the 7/8/9th month of pregnancy

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8:34 AM, 5th June 2019, About 5 years ago

Here is an offical calculator of room entitlement: https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/bedroomcalculator.aspx

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