Thanks. I believe she might have already received her portion of the HB for the past 2 months and spent it. I received a letter today from my service provider about a large phone bill that had been run up on one of my phones in my absence, I believe my regular house phone, and they had put on a block on it. It been taking calls up until the day it went missing so that might shed some light for me on what happened to it. I can try to get her HB paid back into my account, but I'm not seeing any chance she'll agree to it. I could try to talk to the council that pays the HB about it, but again I'm pretty sure they won't agree to any change to her HB without her permission. Which leaves me with option 1 out of those 3, and I can't afford option 1. I'll try to go to the C.A.B., I sent somebody there to speak on my behalf during my illness but they couldn't give any useful help, maybe if I go myself this time and with the new circumstances they can offer something but otherwise im expecting to run out of money and go into arrears and utility debts soon if nothing changes.

It could also be that I didn't benefit at all, in fact I was actually paid less money than it seems I would've got from 2 separate claims. They are basically claiming back half of what the housing benefit would have been, either way it was done. I'm having to pay for half of the rent for the last few months out of my IS. e.g. they just profited about 3+ months of rent and council tax. I don't think they would go so far to prosecute over something that saved them a lot of money. Netwise, if they paid my housing benefit and didn't give me 5 months of income support it would come to the same amount.

I will make an appointment with the closest CAB and try to talk to them, but there is a lot of difficult and uncomfortable background that I might have to explain to do with my mother and family. Are they very helpful?

In answer to all 3 posts about why the HB being paid to my mother won't go towards the rent. Because of her mental illnesses. She will spend the money on charge for her mobile phone (and I'm trying to get her to use a more efficient phone) or something else unnecessary. That's why the new arrangement is more difficult for me, and I was only just managing to get by when I was receiving the HB for the full rent. Wrt, to changing the bank account, etc. I won't be able to get her to agree to this. She will see the HB as part of her new income. I'm already paying for some of her debts, it was already expensive for me, this just adds to them. My brother also has gambling problems and occassionally causes me financial difficulties.

I don't have one.

To reiterate, right now my bills >= income, and my rent is much greater than my income. If I don't pay my bills, my income still doesn't cover my rent in any case, I will go into arrears if I don't pay any other bills. I can barely cover my bills, but then none of my rent gets paid. They both seem like big problems to me. I don't understand why they would want to take more money away from me when I'm barely getting by already. Update: checking my bank statement online and it appears they've just paid some money in. I can't tell what they've done exactly, and what this amount is supposed to be for, as I've received no correspondence from them about it. I haven't received HB for ~6 weeks or more. What I was receiving before would have been: £546.90 (£182*3), what my bank statements shows is £264.96 (or £88.32*3), a difference of £281.94. Basically in those calculations I've assumed this amount is the new amount I'm supposed to receive immediately starting from when they suspended my housing benefit. If that continues I will be short an extra £187.36 a month towards the rent than I was before. My mother has very bad credit history, and won't be able to put her portion of any HB towards the rent costs. I'll have £176.64 of HB/month to pay a rent of approx £475+, which means that I have to make up an extra £300/month towards the rent somehow. How do I make up an extra £300/month towards rent when my income is £380. I can't see any reasonable means I can do this, even if I use my IS thats £300 out of £380 a month which leaves me £80/month to pay bills and get shopping? That seems impossible. Does anyone know why they insist on my mother having a separate HB and CT claim to myself? I could go to the trouble of asking my mother to have her part of the HB paid directly to the landlord but I can't see her agreeing to this and I can't force her. Do I have any other options?

I don't know, I'm as much worried about paying the utility bills as I am about the rent, I have no way of contacting anyone at all if I lose those. The house phone is still missing, I don't have any cash on hand or in the bank, and with my physical disability it's difficult to get around. That said, the rent is paid up, I'm not in arrears, and my overdraft + the amount the bank will let me go below will cover me for a few weeks, however once I'm in that situation I don't have a way out and having less than zero cash is not a good place to be in when I'm in debt and on a low income, I'd prefer to not get to that point in the first place. After that point I will start to be in arrears and be unable to pay bills. I really don't want to be in debt twice or more, to my landlord, to the utilities, and to my bank as well. Keeping a roof over my head is less important to me than being in debt to everything without a chance of being able to pay anything off - I've never been in complete debt before so I don't know what will happen.

Yes No Yes Yes and no I didn't inform them of a change in circumstances, I didn't think about it at the time I was very sick and barely cognisant at the time of the tenancy change, I had a vague idea that the housing people would have sorted that part out for some reason. My mother said she contacted them. I'm not sure if they are claiming to have a record or no record of this. They might be treating it as not informing them. How much difference does that make, specifically, and what sort of position does that leave me in? They aren't claiming back an overpayment with respect to "a person was living there so we assume they would pay towards the rent" - which I got from googling. They are claiming back I think at least half of the housing benefit and council tax paid to me, basically saying that I should only have been getting half and my mother the other half for the entire time. Which adds up to a considerable amount. They haven't actually been specific about what they are claiming back, but it comes to £1800 for a few months which seems like a lot to me, it's certainly more than I can reasonably afford, that's my total income for 5 months.

I'm afraid I don't follow you, do you refer to me or my mother? Both of our names are on the tenancy agreement, and my name has always been on the tenancy agreement.

Is it a new thing? and if it's new, how new is it? I'm thinking if it's less than 6 months, then how they can charge me back for something that was under different rules at the time. Can they do that? I've tried googling different terms but I can't find any information anywhere about what two family members should do if they are both entitled to housing benefit does that mean that it is mandatory for two separate claims as they say?

Thanks SWLABR9 and john. "My understanding is that only one of you can claim for housing benefit in the property". That's what I thought as well but they are telling me the exact opposite and that I have to pay the difference back (basically I should have been getting only half of the HB and CT and my mother the other half). The lease was originally in my name, then my mother put her name on in addition a few months ago. I'm caring for my mother I don't know if that makes me officially or unofficially her carer. "My understanding is that if two family members share the same house then only one can claim Housing Allowance.". Again, that was what I thought too, but when I went to speak to them and in the correspondence they've told me the exact opposite. They demand that the housing benefit be paid in two separate claims, and haven't backdated my mother's new claim, to the effect that I'm owing them about 3-6 months HB and Council Tax. Thus they've suspended my HB and CT (to pay it back). John, I've tried to look up the information that confirms the council's decision and position, but I haven't found any yet, and it's too complicated to see if I've found anything to the contrary. We both can't have had the same understandings from nothing though. Is there some documentation on this? but then, how can they possibly get something like this "wrong", if that makes sense?

Please, please help. My bills will be coming out of my account in less than a month's time, and it's going to send me past my overdraft with my bank. I don't have any means to get back out of an overdraft or from past one. Is there anywhere I can get some kind of financial support in this situation? What will happen if I'm unable to pay my bills in time? My credit history up until this point is really good, though at this point tarnishing that is the least of my problems. Pretty desperate here.

I have second question, where does it say in the rules for housing benefit that every person at an address must have a separate claim for housing benefit, etc? Is this a relatively new thing? - For example, in my cae it would be really ideal if all of the housing benefit etc was paid into my account, otherwise it's greatly increasing the chance that it won't go towards the rent. I've not seen where it is mandatory for everyone to have separate claims, are there situations where this is the case? It really confuses me, having tried to look this up, that the information isn't all in one place. ^ this is still less important than how I am going to deal with a £620/month deficit in the first place.

Hi, I'm renting a property from private landlord. About six months ago my mother moved in and put her name on the tenancy. I received a letter last month that my HB and Council Tax were suspended due to new information. Having spoke to them they sent me another letter saying I owe them £1000 in overpaid HB and £1000 in overpaid CT because my mother didn't make a separate claim. I wasn't aware that she needed to make a separate claim as I thought that one person could claim for both or a family member in a household or that one person only needed to make a claim in a joint tenancy, and the people that were witnesses to the tenancy chance didn't mention it either. I pay all of the rent and all of the household bills, both mother and I are physically and mentally disabled. I'm on income support. My mother having made a claim now receives half of the HB, but because of her illness that won't go towards the rent in any case. I'm no longer in receipt of HB and CT (I don't know why, they didn't just reduce it). This leaves me in the situation of an income of about £380/month to pay over £1000+ of bills/month including the rent, which is just plain impossible, and I don't have any savings due to problems with relations and robbery. I don't know how they expect me to be able to manage, without going homeless on the street and thus not having to pay rent or council tax, and in that case would I even be eligible for income support? I don't know what I'm going to do as it's impossible for me to make a £620+/month deficit, I'm on income support. Even if I were receiving half of the HB and CT I would still be in a deficit, as the full rent and bills match full HB and IS easily. Our house phone has disappeared so getting in contact with anyone is more difficult. Any advice?