17:07 PM, 18th September 2020, About 4 years ago 7
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Benefit tenants, you cannot get accommodation, because the DWP Pensions Minister Will Quince has not got a clue how Universal Credit works and the biggest UC Landlord in Nottingham here can no longer take you. https://t.co/AuoqDsQ2ct
MP Will Quince, please wake up, there could theoretically be no arrears, thousands of fewer evictions if you just gave these UC tenants who you wish to treat as adults and become more responsible a choice!
You will change this allowing tenants to ask for money to be paid to them one day, and we will look back and say Wow all them thousands of people and kids homeless that all could have been avoided.
What the Media hasn’t picked up on yet is the colossal fraud cause DWP will not talk to the very important Landlord who provides the 100k+ house. Fraudsters up and down the country set up claims elsewhere & because UC DWP will categorically not check with the Landlord the tenancy is genuine, the fraudsters are nicely pocket the UC claim including the valuable rent on a fictitious tenancy. All could be avoided if checked with Landlord. This will be made more public eventually. They are getting over £1600 pm for a few months FREE, taxpayers money. A Landlord check would stop this in its tracks.
We also have genuine tenants ringing up UC saying I’ve got a new landlord (They haven’t really), please pay me some more money please and UC do no checking at all that the same Landlord who hasn’t had money for months is now
They tried this in 2008 with Local Housing Allowance – It didn’t work. 2012, Housing Benefits would say send us an email, job done, we’ll pay you, we know the tenant is spending it. Why don’t DWP learn from history & just go ask their sister departments?
As it is now, when UC tenant is in arrears, we fill in the online form. This is AFTER US LANDLORDS telling UC for SEVEN years, your UC47 paper form ISN’T working. DWP UC defended it. Why have they now set up an online system for us then?
My point being, Govt, DWP UC constantly get it wrong and do it our way eventually, but 7 years to do a simple change that HB did 8 years ago? Come on wake up Govt.
With this online form now, we get ZERO confirmation it’s been accepted, zilch. So we are none the wiser. We just hope and if the Landlord finally gets paid, the tenant who’s in big arrears just rings UC back up & says pay me please, so the naive UC DWP staff who don’t know their own rules, say Ok then. Meanwhile, Landlord wonders where his rent is & then gets repossessed so can’t pay the mortgage. This is happening and we wonder why the homelessness is shooting up.
The DWP spokesman says he has not heard from Landlords in relation to this. Hello? Yoo hoo is anyone there? Only 3 months ago, your UC director top man Neil Couling asked for details of my genuine tenant who had her details and claim stopped by a Fraudster who set up claim in my genuine 50+ year old disabled tenants name. And here’s the biggy, my tenants money got stopped and UC said to her, we can’t talk to you, the Fraudster has to ring us to sort this out, you couldn’t make it up.
Neil Couling UC Director knows all about this, so for DWP to say they’ve not heard of stuff like this is utter lies.
So you Landlords that are still not being paid by UC, please keep telling your MP and beware when/if taking UC tenants at your own risk, or those you have a track record with.
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Bill irvine
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Sign Up19:27 PM, 18th September 2020, About 4 years ago
Hi Mick
The Minister is simply repeating parrot fashion what Neil Couling claimed when Housing Associations demonstrated their rent arrears were going through the roof 3/4 years ago.
He maintained the way RSLs assessed actual rent arrears was flawed when, in fact, the methodology, unlike Mr Couling’s, accorded with the law.
This note was partly prompted by a call I received earlier from a lady landlord who has 1 property. Her tenant lied to her agent claiming he was employed, but at lockdown she discovered, he was self-employed And forced to claim UC from March.
Since then he’s received more than £7000 in housing costs, with not one penny seen by the landlord.
When confronted he became aggressive & threatening and when he discovered she had applied for an APA he objected and convinced DWP not to pay her. Instead she received a reference request from another letting agent.
Clearly, his plan is to move on at some point preventing the recovery of the ever increasing debt.
Sadly, this story is now pretty typical of the calls & emails I receive daily. What’s happening is nothing short of scandalous. DWP’s response just beggars belief, as it’s directorate is well acquainted with what’s happening and doing little, from what I can see, to stem landlords’ losses.
PRS Landlords need to take the fight to their MPs and bombard them with their horror stories, just as they did between 2008-10 with LHA issues.
Bill
Peter Fredericks
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Sign Up8:47 AM, 21st September 2020, About 4 years ago
I agree Bill but the problem is that it is our failed and utterly inadequate established political class and the equally inadequate laughing-stock Whitehall civil service who "designed" and "implemented" these flawed systems in the first instance. At almost every level of activity we are let down by these smug hapless and complacent amateurs in Whitehall. Going to the local MP might make some impression but they are pretty well powerless to do anything that goes against the governmental grain. We live in a failing and fading country with little proper representation and where things that were previously unconscionable are becoming the norm. Just look at the Tenant Fees Act, originated in the House of Lords of all places, requiring landlords to undertake and/or pay agents to perform vast amounts of work for which they cannot be paid/reimbursed, massively discriminatory but not unlawful under a so-called Equality Act that is shot through with holes and our so-called constitution.
rbinscotland
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Sign Up10:20 AM, 21st September 2020, About 4 years ago
Ive read all entries on here and would only add, as a landlord I have been paid over £9k over a period of months which is not for any of my tenants. I've told them starting about 4 months ago. The delay was because I had tenants who were claiming UC and agreed to pay direct to me. So I had to work out who, where the extra monies related too. UC couldn't tell be due to Data Protection. Unsurprisingly UC want their monies back. Conversely, I have had to claim UC as my only income, rent - has dropped. and they wont pay me because I've got £9k in a bank account. The same £9k. I have written, emailed and phoned and had many conversation out dog walking, at home with children, in the middle of dinner, basically working from home and not able to help after 2 hour waiting. I have now just passed to My local MP. I had started a discussion on here earlier when this started, to see if there was any ideas!! Or options available. Do I but food and get shoes for kids and reduce the £9k and then it'll allow me to legitimately get the UC I think I'm due.
Reluctant Landlord
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Sign Up10:44 AM, 21st September 2020, About 4 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Rbinscotland at 21/09/2020 - 10:20
I'd be tempted to move the 9K to someone else just to get it 'off your books' and then claim UC if you need it to live on.
You can argue you knew it wasn't yours from the offing and have been trying to give it back (keep all emails/timeline of conversations etc).
If your own UC claim is rejected then kick off one almighty fuss and then contact the MP stating you are being denied your benefits. If you go at it from this angle perhaps more chance of getting it sorted?
rbinscotland
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Sign Up10:48 AM, 21st September 2020, About 4 years ago
Reply to the comment left by WP at 21/09/2020 - 10:44
It was paid into my business account, i had moved it ( I thought id get some interest on it) but over 5 months of no claimed - I regrettably have had to use some, Not just my kids needing food, but tenants oven, Washing machine, gas certificates etc. I hoping they don't want it back all at once. But at the moment UC are not paying me. So I'm using it sparingly.
Mick Roberts
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Sign Up15:15 PM, 21st September 2020, About 4 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Bill irvine at 18/09/2020 - 19:27
This is shocking Bill, 7k. One would think someone in authority would listen, wake up & tell the others this is another reason why Landlords ain't taking Benefit tenants any more.
Mick Roberts
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Sign Up15:16 PM, 21st September 2020, About 4 years ago
Reply to the comment left by Rbinscotland at 21/09/2020 - 10:20
That's unreal, how can they bill u for someone, but not tell u who that someone is? This is one massive problem we all have, they UC just won't talk to us. Homeless will spiral upwards till they sort this.