Welfare Reform Week – Your chance to feedback to DWP on Universal Credit

not being able to get information without the tennats n.i number date of birth etc the signing of a form is not good enough any more , if anything surly the tennant shouldnt be giving the n.i number and date of birth out to any one , this goes to show the mentality off the people in charge , its a complete joke

Recently had a tenant, single mum, rent paid direct to me from Council. She wanted her boyfriend to move in with her which I agreed to. She went to the council to tell them this was going to happen whereupon they immediately stopped all payments.
She and the boyfriend were put onto universal credit, their first payment was not made for over a month leaving them in arrears on the rent and in debt for living expences. She is trying to pay this off when she can but it is not easy.
Our rental agreement clearly states that rent is due each month in advance but when a tenant is on benefits this is impossible as benefits payments are always in arrears. Now, if the tenant misses one payment, she is in fact two months in arrears and could be in danger of being evicted.
The council had agreed to pay me directly because of her previous history of not being able to manage her money and now this is no longer possible her situation is insecure.

I'm waiting for UC to get back to me from 18 months ago.

Some logs of recent dealings with UC:
Mon 4 Sep 17, 1620, I ring UC. Mark tells me UC need to know total amount of rent payable & rent due.
They have already had this on the tenancy.
UC also say they need my proper address, they can’t take my PO Box address. Oh, they can’t can they?
Well, they are currently paying two claims with my PO Box address, one is direct to me, which is XXXXX
Are UC thick?
I put phone down after 20mins queuing.

I get Michael, he was brilliant, Mark put wrong rent down & wrong PO Box address for me, but me & Michael agree, all UC had to do was look at tenancy & ring Mark, which shows the correct amount of rent & the correct address.
Michael says £718 going in this Friday.
Fri 8 Sep 17, Mark not received the Housing Element. He’s received £90ish, when should have got £700 including his UC & the Housing element £395.
I was told earlier in the week Housing Element going in the bank.
1240ish, I ring UC, I get Ade, £95.42 gone in.
He said his last earning 26 July, he has bank statements to prove, UC said his earnings were 2 August.
What are we going to do to solve this?
Ade is looking at the HMRC system as well.
Ade says Marks wages she says 2nd August are taken into consideration for the NEXT month.
So even though we all know our monthly wages are for the last previous month, OH NO, UC says they should last the NEXT month too. So when UC is due in 6 weeks time from last wages, u won’t get any as they said you had wages last month.
Ade says I will have to ask Housing Team why no Housing Element in there, I say why can’t you ask them now?
Mark is to get in touch with HMRC directly if he is querying 2nd August wages.
Mark is to take his wage slip & bank statement to Job Centre to prove he din’t get paid on 2nd August.
Marks assessment period is 2Aug-1Sep. Everything earned in this period is taken into account for UC.
Why wasn’t I told this week when I rang that Mark would only be paid £95? I was told he would be getting the £395 Housing Element into his bank Fri 8 Sep 17.
Marks money is £317.82 + £395 = £712.82.
Mark said his wages were 26th July £829, 30th July £151.50.

So I've now had 3 claims UC. All messed up. That's 100% failure rate.
The second claim only got sorted because u Sherrelle got involved & solved it.

I have a girl in southport she was in a terrible situation forced out due to domestic violence issues with a child. I decided to let her move in with just 250 and no deposit as I felt sorry for her and believed she would be a good tenant. She had a zero hours job in an off Licence and paid weekly for a few months. She then lost her job in June abs hasn't paid a penny since waiting for universal credit now 14 weeks in arrears and counting. We have applied for it to be paid direct and she was told payment tomorrow but there's nothing pending so I assume a direct payment wil be made for over 1500 tomorrow so fingers crossed she pays it over but never again will i take it but situations like this one are hard to avoid as she wasn't on it. These torys are ruining lives they way they are treating people on this dreaded UC

Reply to the comment left by tony tony at 27/09/2017 - 12:36I don't rent to tenant who cant show me a pay slip with their N.I number, their passport, and as for their D.O.B - that's captured in the Tenant reference check.

Reply to the comment left by Chris Daniel at 27/09/2017 - 23:43
you are oviously not renting to tennats on benefits then , because alot of them dont even have a passport ! what im saying is why have they changed the system ,they could of kept it the same as what they do for LHA if it isnt broke dont mend it

Totally agreed I used to rent to LHA housing cheque every month rent paid no worries. Now after meddling by these torys I won’t touch it with a barge pole very sad and frustrating for the tenants but there is more than enough Eastern European workers in my area and the are better tenants.

i rented one of my properties to a couple in september last year. the told me they would be getting uc so i was expecting a delay. i kept in close contact with the tenants, who kept telling me uc we delaying their claim as the man was starting an apprenticeship but his boss was ill and counted get in to sign his contract with the college. the couple then split up and the female took over the property on her own. i first contacted uc in december and was told if i had her NI number and passwords they could talk to me. i got these and rang again to be turned down flatly to even talk to me. i tried again and the lady asked me different questions to access her account, things i couldnt have known like where was she born and did she have any other benefits. again they wouldnt discus anything with me as they said they couldnt access her account. in january i then sent emails to every email address on the .GOV website. none of which received a reply. i sent them again a week later, still no reply. all i wanted to know was if there was a delay with the claim or if my tenant was lying to me to i could look at eviction. still no reply despite send to the landlords email address with the subject as eviction. I was left no choice so attempted to fill in a u47 form, online and emailed and posted. left it a few weeks then rang and noone would tell me anything. i tried several times to get someone to even talk to me. i then sent yet another u47 and received an answerphone message telling me the details were wrong, i had the dob one day out. i corrected this sent the form again, gave it a while then started chasing again. eventually i received an email telling me they would pay the rent directly to me. with no details at all, no figure no date just that my payments would have certain letters after then one for the rent and one for the arrears. some payments did go into my account but didnt have the stated letters after the reference. i called again and they couldnt tell me why they had put money into my account as they couldnt discus her claim with me. they couldnt even confirm the money was for her. i pointed out to them that on the .GOV website it stated that oncde a payment plan was in place they could discus the rental part of the claim could be discussed with the landlord. they disagreed with this. so i raised a complaint. (in july , to date no reply) her case manager eventually contacted me as did a person in the live complaints department who agreed it could be discussed with me, but we are full so he couldnt do anything. her case manager said he would look into te complaint and update me when he received a reply. he stopped answer emails in august. the payments didnt cover the rent so it was looked at again i they said i was getting the wrong amount and it should be £200 a month more (which still didnt cover the rent as their email stated) i asked if the amount had been wrong for a long time and if she was owed arrears they should be paid to me to go towards clearing her debt which is going up each month and the arrears payment at the present amount will take 30 years to clear the debt if it didnt go any higher. i ring them approx once a week each time im told something different about accessing her account. i have told them that i hold them fully responsible for the arrears since january when i first contacted them by email as they have failed to act. this complaint has yet to receive any reply. i have not received any letters from u/c regarding the repayments or the managed payments. i have tried to contact ice but as i dont have any response to my complaints let alone a final response they cant do anything. i have now emailed andrew rhodes but as yet no reply! my tenant keeps telling me she is trying to sort it out and has also put in appeals. she has also said that as they told me she had to to, put in an authorisation for them to talk to me. but apparently it only last 2 weeks and most of the time they tell me they cant even access her account as im not her. I have now been told that they have no record of me contacting them until may/june and one lady told me the email address i sent to didn't exist then the next man her supervisor gave me the same address to use. i have threatened they with court action which if i do not receive a response from andrew rhodes i will be forced to do.
i have 3 tenants that are on u/c they have been my tenants for 4-5 years and never in arrears now all 3 are in arrears and if i was not a fair landlord would all be evicted.

Reply to the comment left by Marc Welham at 30/09/2017 - 12:42
Get your tennants to ring them on your phone with all the passwords etc and tell u c to talk to you ,that defo works