Universal Credit tenants – This is why you can’t get a house any more

Since UC came into being, I have lost well in excess of £50,000 and wasted huge amounts of time contacting UC, and not once have I been compensated, or had money frozen. I have always asked that UC freeze payments whilst they are investigating and not once did they do this whilst, "did no investigation" but continued paying the tenant.

Having read all comments above, there appears to be absolutely no hope with my current complaints although, I am already well aware of the situation and have read and followed both Bill and Micks posts extensively.

I have now started selling up as the landlord business is definitely not a business to be in. One puts in hard work, and the harder you work, the more the government thinks of making it even harder to cope with the work.

The UC office needs to do the basic of civilise administration including:

1. Formally communicate with the landlords through email, a portal and over the phone.
2. Follow & respect formal Dwp APA guidance.
3. When APA is set up confirm this in writing. Currently they give an email to confirm payment is made to you but do not confirm is it APA or Scottish Choices they set it up through. Obviously Scottish Choices is only in Scotland but both set up have different legal grounds and treatments. The email also does not confirm from what date from, how much and any other details like pay date etc etc. Just simply we will start paying you. Totally unacceptable.
4. Issue remittance for each payment made confirming the claimant, amount, date it covers etc either through email, a portal or by post. At the moment they do none.
5. Suspend UC housing cost when a landlord informs them of non payment and during the investigation process to set up APA.

Again, at the moment it feels like a completely uncivilised administration, no order, no guidance, any thing in anyway they like and no accountability to their actions.

Reply to the comment left by Alan Wong at 02/06/2020 - 13:37
Simple solution just make rental element paid directly to landlords and better still like Housing Benefit make it all payable on the same day. This would make life far too easy for landlords so definitely off the table.

Reply to the comment left by MasterG at 02/06/2020 - 10:28
I’m quite shocked at your insulting post. Not the thing I’d expect to read on this forum. Mick has my full support how he keeps going with all this cr@p is beyond me.

Reply to the comment left by Dylan Morris at 02/06/2020 - 14:03I agree. Mick has his own style of writing, and I believe that everyone should be left to write as they so please as long as they are not offending anyone.
Mick has been particularly helpful to me in responding to ongoing UC problems and I do appreciate it.
Keep posting what you feel you should for the benefit of all those that appreciate what you are conveying & responding to Mick.

Reply to the comment left by Bill irvine at 02/06/2020 - 12:08
That's exactly it Bill, schoolboy errors. We've both seen their MANAGERS replies, higher up staff who should have something about the, & they 5 times worse than the Overseas Call Centre when u throw him an awkward one that's not on his computer screen.

Since this post, I have received ICE's 12 page reply condemning DWP & the mistakes start to finish.
What was funny, DWP said they hadn't received any of my emails. They then received Ministerial correspondence (I must have sent it MP too) & they in less than 24 hours said they found all my emails. Amazing, 2-3 months they said they couldn't find my emails & voila like Paul Daniels Magic show, there they are.

You say this Bill:
"20. Where the Ombudsman finds fault causing injustice we seek to put the complainant back in the position they would have been if the Council had not been at fault. The Council should therefore pay Mrs X. I acknowledge that it cannot pay housing benefit twice for the same period. However, Mrs X should be recompensed for the money she did not receive due to Council fault."

That's all we asking for. To not lose money on renting houses when there is a plan in place to cover for this, yet DWP WILL NOT talk to Landlord.
Hopefully with all the pushing U, Me, Clint, Alan, Robert Mellors, Luke P, Jonathon Clarke, all UC Landlords, can do, we may get somewhere-In 20 years ha ha. As the more I talk to the higher up UC staff, they saying We agree Mick, u need an email contact & at moment there is none. Lot of my stuff can be resolved in 20 seconds if we had common sense person to talk to. As it is, only way we get some contact is with a complaint to people who have the brain the size of a pea. And it takes 2 years to get the pea to come out the pod.

Reply to the comment left by Alan Wong at 02/06/2020 - 13:37
That's it Alan, give us communication. UC DWP's way costs an absolute fortune. I used to sue HB for years every time winning compensation. Nottingham HB saw sense, gave me email contact & now for 10 to 15 years, zero complaints, no more paying out compensation, their time is less, as is mine, tenants rent gets paid & I know they don't do joined up thinking, but the GOVT & Taxpayer saves thousands too with no cost of going in homeless. It's ridiculous how someone high up can't see this & join us all up.

Approx 2 years ago UC complaints were costing £200,000 a month & the man in charge then said Most of these complaints are solvable if someone would have picked the phone up to talk to Landlord.

3. Yes Alan, we get told nothing on payments. U just have to wait till payment day & hope. And they say UC is supposed to mirror work. How can it mirror work when u don't know your amounts?

4. I have a big bug bear on them not issuing payment remittances when HB has been doing it for 15+ years so simply & lovely & 3 days before payment so u know what's wrong & what's not coming etc.

I'm hearing of lots of fraud at the moment from false UC claimants or UC claimants lying about rent. All cause DWP won't ask Landlord who is arguably more responsible than UC tenant. He normally has email, computer, records, owns the house, he can tell the truth to DWP whether tenant is living there or not. Maybe this will force DWP's hand one day to start dealing with Landlord.

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 04/06/2020 - 08:48
Mick you are correct. On the whole the Dwp UC office must start fit and proper civilised basic all level communication with housing providers as a minimum in order to make matters work. Nothing can ever work effectively when a group of people cut off communication as a general default practice. It is genuinely unbelievable in 2020, an advance country like the UK have a group of government officials practicing such behaviours.

Reply to the comment left by Alan Wong at 04/06/2020 - 12:05That's it Alan,
We a housing Provider. Your words are better than mine. But to DWP Ooh No, Gees we got a Landlord on the phone Shock Horrors, Do everything in your power to lie to him, fob him off & at all costs DO NOT MAKE SURE HE GETS THAT RENT!! We not concerned about the tenant being homeless later, much more important is DO NOT let that Landlord into this DWP system to change it so it works, or we'll all be out of a job.
We could change it instantly couldn't we. The arguments I used to have with HB in 1997, they'd laugh at me. They now for the last 10 to 15 years do these things as normal. It would be laughable now if they din't do these things like talk to the Landlord when arrears, if they ddin't allow us to email proof in, if they suggested we go to the HB office in town & queue for 3 hours, they'd probably be hung for even thinking about it. But it was normal for them then. UC has just undone all this good work.

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 04/06/2020 - 16:40
Having had HB tenants and now having to deal with UC, I fully agree with you Mick. HB was a wonderful system compared to UC which I cannot believe gets away with it all.