Lowered Benefit cap could affect landlords from 8th May?

Hi Alan Loughlin

I accept that some are truly scum.

But most are just either badly let down with little or no education or bad health problems poor support to try and help them improve. The system is so wrong in so many ways.

We have heard a few comments on these posts how little is in fact paid to the unemployed. And a huge cost is pensioners. I would love to give everyone a good standard in life but there has always and will always be the haves and the have not's.

I have heard many pensioners say and sometimes rant how they worked all there lives for there pension. and give of about the unemployed. So I ask each one of them to say how much they actually paid into the system for their pension. I can almost guarantee many paid little or nothing compare to the amount of money they now receive and take from the system. So if you put in you get to take out. Many hard working pensioners with a small private pension are hugely penalised for that small pension and the refused help with rent pension credit council tax. They get there basic state pension and because of there small private pension they are not entitled to any thing else. While others who did not have the extra pension can get £280 per week plus rent and council tax pension credit.

I met with someone today and the system is trying to take her child. I know she has difficulties. When I see her child he is always smiling and happy to chatter away.
But when I hear of other stories of parents taking drugs and drinking and the system do nothing to protect their children, I really wonder what goes on. Because someone is a little slow /uneducated but loves her child is now fighting to save her child from care.

just seems strange to me that when we see them on the tv moaning about being deprived, no money etc they always seem to have a fag in hand, and having sky seems compulsory, as is a very big dog, it is a matter of priorities, about money management. I saw one being interviewd when walking away from a foodbank, he said if it were not for the foodbank he would not be able to afford his fags.
Personally I think foodbanks exacerbate the situation, as does giving to beggars, this solves nothing.

Reply to the comment left by "Alan Loughlin" at "15/05/2015 - 07:37":

Yes, I agree that it is about priorities and money management, and people taking responsibility for their own situations instead of blaming others. I also agree that it is strange that all the TV programs show people on benefits with fags, booze, tattoos, big dogs, big screen TV, Sky, etc, and of course it shows them all selling weed or shoplifting or scamming the system - mmmmm, perhaps they choose to only show these types as it make for better TV sensationalism (and thus higher viewing figures)? I certainly agree that there are people out there like that, but the TV programs do give a very unbalanced (biased) and exaggerated version to suit their own purposes.

The problem is mainly down to the system, people will try to exploit whatever system is in place in order to maximise what they can get from it. This is exactly what companies do, hence why multi-billion pound companies like Starbucks and Google supposedly make no profit from UK customers and therefore pay virtually no tax to the UK government, they are simply exploiting the system that the government has put in place. But offsetting costs and structuring a business to pay as little tax as possible is something many landlord do also, after all, nobody wants to pay tax if they can avoid doing so.

There are many things which are unfair, and lazy unemployed people exploiting and scamming the system is one of those things. As is the fact that if they are on benefits then their creditors cannot obtain payment from them for money they owe (e.g. rent arrears and damages) as once they have moved out then you cannot get deductions from their benefits anymore. The system does need a thorough overhaul to ensure that the safety net is there, but that it cannot be so easily exploited or abused and that people are held responsible for their own actions. This would also need an overhaul of the criminal justice system, because at the moment the legal system does not do this, and the police do nothing to hold people responsible (e.g. if a tenant smashes up a flat, the police do not charge them with criminal damage, they just say it's a landlord and tenant issue and the landlord should claim against the deposit and if it does not cover the damage then the landlord should have got a bigger deposit).

Yes Rob, I have & have seen many people sofa surfing, especially more so, since the Govt stopped paying 25-35 year olds the normal one bed rate.

Ha ha no homelessness, come to Nottingham, you can’t even get in the shelter to ‘become homeless’.

Alan, that’s why these programmes do as they do, with fag in hand & Sky TV, so people like u say ‘Look they loaded’. Me & Rob can show u that, but also show u the bare food cupboards, the no clothes kids, the no heating, no hot water.

Luke, some people need support & get out of it, some people need support unfortunately for a long long time.
I have some tenants that aren’t disabled, but u would just not employ ‘em. They just cannot follow out simple instructions. This started when they was 7 years old, ingrained in them.
I’ve had some of them been forced into jobs with JSA changes & just cannot do the job, simple stores like Superdrug, Tesco etc. They end up having breakdown & back on the sick.

They aren’t beyond support, no support & get even worse.
The system isn’t broke, it does work. It’s only the ‘posh-uns’ that say it’s broke, because they’d like ‘em all to get high powered jobs like theirselves.

Alan, what do we do with the ‘Lazy’ then? I agree, they should work, but they don’t. What then?

Reply to the comment left by "Mick Roberts" at "15/05/2015 - 08:14":

Hi Mick

While I agree with most of what you've said, I disagree about the system not being broke. Yes it works for some people, both you and I have got out of homelessness and unemployment with the help of the system, but it can and is sometimes exploited by the lazy and dishonest, and it has many flaws in other ways (as per my examples above), so if it is not "broke" then it certainly "needs further improvement". However, I don't believe that simply lowering the benefit cap or cutting benefits (especially the part for paying the rent) is the means of achieving this.

Yes Rob, please disagree with me if u think I’m wrong, as I am normally on same wavelength as u.
And u r right, I was only saying not broke because I was probably wrongly trying to disagree with some people above.
But what I mean’t as in working, it was for previous years before these welfare cuts, still paying tenants for a roof over the heads. So that’s what I mean’t as not broke, Tenant gets welfare, welfare gets HB, HB pays for house.

But as we know, these soon to be coming further welfare cuts, might not be doing that, so we will be definitely broke then.
Some emails I got yesterday in the links below, which shows the ‘unbroken’ system (in my opinion as far as HB is concerned) is now becoming very broken.

Ha ha yes, u can remember how I started? I forgot who I tell.
Yes ‘needs further improvement’ is the posh words I maybe should have used.

http://www.24dash.com/news/housing/2015-05-14-Shelter-slams-highest-eviction-figures-by-landlords-in-6-years?utm_source=24dash+newsletter+subscribers&utm_campaign=21ca522d1e-UA-31909-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8420f27959-21ca522d1e-351974

http://www.24dash.com/news/housing/2015-05-15-Iain-Duncan-Smith-hails-success-of-benefit-cap-as-evictions-hit-record-levels?utm_source=24dash+newsletter+subscribers&utm_campaign=21ca522d1e-UA-31909-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8420f27959-21ca522d1e-351974

I've been a L/L for 15 years and have always had trouble with HB tenants. One example and to cut a long story short. £2500 unpaid rent - £600 sol's fees - £350 court fees - £1000 damage to property - £500 lost rent for time taken for repairs! All this for a sob story! Notice, cuts are generally made to HB and not general benefits plus the tenants mostly don't pay the rent anyway! I could write a book! Our council r bringing in licensing and if things aren't up to scratch ( which includes tenant anti social behaviour) the fine is-------£20,000 with £500 license fee for the privilage ! Councils off load onto us, have no maintainance worries then bring in nice juicy fines! Also, I'm sick hearing about "vulnerable persons" it's the L/L that is vulnerable. We don't have a strong enough voice and need to band together and be heard! One piece of advice - keep away fro HBs. Strong words and it's the job that made me that way!

LANDLORDS AGAINST TAKING ON HB TENANTS!!
Now that's a petition if ever I saw one?? It may make the govt think if we could have enough signatures
??

Reply to the comment left by "Jack Ass" at "17/05/2015 - 00:09":

Hi Jack Ass

"It is the landlords that are vulnerable", I couldn't agree more!!!!! Tenants (not just HB tenants) have loads of legal protections, and the landlord has virtually none, and the legal system is expensive and takes so f.....ing long that the landlords end up losing time and money. The government and media and general public don't care about private landlords as we are still portrayed as the stereotypical Victorian rich evil money grabbing aristocrat/industrialists that prey on the poor workers and abuse our power over them, - this is of course total crap and couldn't be further from the truth, but nevertheless the result is the same........ no protection for landlords against the tenants that cause so much damage and loss. All that said, I have some lovely respectful honest Housing Benefit tenants who I would go out of my way to help, but I do also get the ones like your example who don't pay the rent, cause damage, bully other residents, cause nuisance to neighbours, etc, but I guess this can happen with working tenants as well. It really is about time that the government took some action to protect the landlords, and the first step would be to massively speed up the eviction process! (the next step would be to give a "deductions from benefits" enforcement option for recovering debts from former tenants, so as to hold them more accountable for the arrears and damage).

The more the Government can protect the landlords, then the more the landlords will be willing to house the tenants that the State is unable to house. The more the costs, risks and burdens on the landlord, the less willing they will be to take those higher risk tenants. At the moment, the system is unbalanced, all the risk is on the landlord, and all the protection is on the side of the tenant.

Yes, all the benefit caps/cuts within Universal Credit will affect Housing Benefit (the part for paying the rent with), not the person's money for other living expenses, so it is the good tenants that try to pay their full rent that will suffer, and for the not so honourable tenants they will stop paying the full rent so the landlords will suffer. This is why the benefit cap is the wrong way of trying to cut benefits. It will cause most harm to the good landlords and good tenants, and affect the bad tenants the least.

AA Properties, I don't think it is a "landlords against taking on HB tenants" petition that is needed, I think it is a "landlords need protection from bad tenants" petition/campaign that's needed, and the two steps mentioned above (faster evictions and deduction from benefits arrears enforcement option) need to be among what is being petitioned for.

Make it a condition of the tenancy that rent is paid directly to you. Section 93 of the Housing Benefits Regulations 2006 states that if the LA can't make a decision/accurate calculation of HB within 14 days, then an estimate must be paid (then adjusted later if too high or too low). This is to stop endless waiting, but councils often don't even know the rules themselves...don't let them push you around.