Local authority tells tenants not to leave the property?

Reply to the comment left by Happy housing at 29/07/2023 - 10:39
There's a 70% gap in HB and actual rent due pcm

Reply to the comment left by Peter Newman at 07/07/2023 - 10:48
Not exactly. Here is my experience with what I discovered was a serial-fraudster tenant:
1 As others state, always pursue the legal route ASAP once you reach the 2 months' arrears. The eviction process may take up to ONE YEAR in London !!
Ensure that when you apply for a Possession Order, you / your solicitor have requested AT that Hearing:
1.1 To Transfer Up the Possession Order to the High Court Enforcement officers (on grounds that County Court Bailiffs have months of delay. >6 months in London. While HCEO cost a bit more they get the job done in a couple of weeks).
1.2 Request the Court to grant you your legal + enforcement costs + interest + a daily rental rate until vacant possession. (Note Vacant Possession is not the same as Eviction date if they leave the property full of their stuff - you have to give them several further weeks' notice !)
1.3 And request the Court registers their Rental Arrears debt as a CCJ Debt - so that other landlords and suppliers can see it!
Courts do NOT automatically do this so >90% of Possession Orders are NOT registered and so don't appear on tenants' credit scores 🙁
1.4 Beware that at evictions, landlords very rarely recover ANY of the money owed. To recover ££, you need to file a 3rd Party Debt Order via the CC.

2 Tenants who receive Housing Benefit and do not pay any/all of the rent are committing Benefits Fraud so report them on https://www.gov.uk/report-benefit-fraud (Do not rely on your local council to deal with this alone, report it to the Council AND gov.uk).
2.1 IF you know that your tenant is receiving Housing Benefit and not paying full rent, then once they are 2 months or more in arrears, you can FORCE the council to pay the HB directly to YOU and NOT the tenant. It's the law so keep pushing the council until they do. (It may not cover all the rent, but will certainly help).
2.2 In extreme case like mine, Brent Council accepted my proof that the Tenant was a serial HB fraudster and so suspended the HB. Result tenant lived for free in my property for another 7 months! Then the tenant appealed the HB suspension, and ridiculously Brent then awarded the tenant £10k in back-payments !!!
It took months but in the end I got the Brent Council to refund me the full £10k in unpaid rent :)) and am still pushing to ensure they re-claim the £10Ks paid to this Tenant in fraudulent HB claims - it's public money from gov.uk = tax-payers.

3 Councils ALWAYS tell tenants to stay until they are evicted - which is why you need High Court Enforcement Officers (see 1.1) and not waste your time and money on County Court Bailiffs who are cheaper but in London having 6-9 month waiting lists and are often on the tenants' side so 'wimp-out' when the going gets tough. (Do not believe the TV series.)

4 Despite a long history of Benefits fraud and voluntarily not paying the rent in order to pocket the ££, my tenant WAS re-housed by the Council (@ tax-payers) on grounds of disability.
By a) proving the history of fraud &
b) asking the CC to register the unpaid debt, the tenant will not be able to inflict this nightmare on any more landlords.

Omg reading this. I've only applied for the arrears to be paid by hb. As my solicitors have said tenants saying only pay so and so with the solicitor's. So I'm still short quite a bit, so I'm not sure as I can do anything else??

Reply to the comment left by Landlord@Brent at 31/07/2023 - 12:59
What by if the tenants not getting the full amount of benefits due to rent increase? Then technically they cannot afford it?

Reply to the comment left by Landlord@Brent at 31/07/2023 - 12:59
Very similar on a case last year. I am interested how you ‘persuaded’ Brent to pay the arrears. I went all the way to Ombudsman and got no where. Please expand.

Reply to the comment left by dismayed landlord at 31/07/2023 - 15:03
Yes please I know I'm headed down this route soon.

Reply to the comment left by Landlord@Brent at 31/07/2023 - 12:59
What's an requested AT ?

Reply to the comment left by Happy housing at 31/07/2023 - 14:58
Overwhelming facts + forceful emails to senior Council officers + absolute persistence !

a) I had notified Brent from the first month that tenant stopped paying the rent despite receiving HB.
b) I then forwarded them all the PROOF of the HB fraud (including Court Order for previous landlord who is owed £100,000 from this tenant and even a post by the Tenant in their own name boasting about it the fraud)
c) When I discovered 6 months after the HB was suspended that Brent had refunded the tenant (who extradorinarily included it in their "defence" as part of the Possession hearing), I wrote to the CEO & Head of Housing a VERY firm email saying they had 48 hours to start paying ME not the tenant. Told them they had actively aided, abetted fraud & broken the law.
It worked - they immediately started paying me the HB (which had been reduced to 60% of rent but better than nothing)
d) After the eviction I forwarded all the correspondence & made a corporate complaint via Brent's website.
Able to prove they had broken gov.uk law & actively created a fraud. They denied all this but paid £7k. They wrote that this was in line with what the Ombudsman would have awarded.
e) I thanked them but said they clearly had not learnt their lesson, and that as they had paid the tenant £10k not £7k, I was due a FULL refund and if not I would go to the Ombudsman.
They agreed 🙂
f) Last month the Tenant made another appeal about the HB & they granted £1000 refund but awarded me £700 for the time in my property ! Received an absusive email from the tenant accusing me (liar, thief, ****** etc) which I forwarded to the Police who arrested them for Hate Crime !!
I still lost ~£4000 (big improvement on the previous -£15,000) due to Enforcement & Legal costs but am now trying to re-claim these via a 3rd Party Debt order.

Reply to the comment left by Happy housing at 31/07/2023 - 14:58
Overwhelming facts + forceful emails to senior Council officers + absolute persistence !

a) I had notified Brent from the first month that tenant stopped paying the rent despite receiving HB.
b) I then forwarded them all the PROOF of the HB fraud (including Court Order for previous landlord who is owed £100,000 from this tenant and even a post by the Tenant in their own name boasting about it the fraud)
c) When I discovered 6 months after the HB was suspended that Brent had refunded the tenant (who extradorinarily included it in their "defence" as part of the Possession hearing), I wrote to the CEO & Head of Housing a VERY firm email saying they had 48 hours to start paying ME not the tenant. Told them they had actively aided, abetted fraud & broken the law.
It worked - they immediately started paying me the HB (which had been reduced to 60% of rent but better than nothing)
d) After the eviction I forwarded all the correspondence & made a corporate complaint via Brent's website.
Able to prove they had broken gov.uk law & actively created a fraud. They denied all this but paid £7k. They wrote that this was in line with what the Ombudsman would have awarded.
e) I thanked them but said they clearly had not learnt their lesson, and that as they had paid the tenant £10k not £7k, I was due a FULL refund and if not I would go to the Ombudsman.
They agreed 🙂
f) Last month the Tenant made another appeal about the HB & they granted £1000 refund but awarded me £700 for the time in my property ! Received an absusive email from the tenant accusing me (liar, thief, ****** etc) which I forwarded to the Police who arrested them for Hate Crime !!
I still lost ~£4000 (big improvement on the previous -£15,000) due to Enforcement & Legal costs but am now trying to re-claim these via a 3rd Party Debt order.

Reply to the comment left by Happy housing at 31/07/2023 - 14:57
If I understand you correctly, then yes, you can ONLY apply to the Council for Housing Benefit allowance.
If HB does not cover all the rent (in my case they reduced it from 100% to 60% of the rent) then you will only get that part of the rent.
Anything remaining (Rent - HB = gap) you can try to get back via the High Ct Enforcement agents or a Court Debt order to claim against the bank account (assuming they have the money).

This is not related to rent increases. If you raise the rent, the HB (or LHA Allowance) will not change, so it is your tenants who are liable for the gap.