Report non-payment of rent to council (housing benefit)

[KJD]

I'm not sure the title of this thread states the problem clearly, but briefly...

We are a private landlord with tenants who receive housing benefit. We received just one rent payment from them after they started getting HB and then no rent. They kept assuring us that the rent would be paid when their HB arrears were paid to them but needless to say never arrived. They've now gone and the flat is back in our possession.

My question is, if they had been receiving HB all along and just not paying their rent, who do we 'dob' them in to at the council?! We'd hate to think they have gotten away with receiving HB (which U and I are paying for!), and may even be still receiving HB when they've moved out!

Any thoughts?

[Conniff]

I would make an equiry to the council in the first instance and see what they have to say.

[hannahbella24]

im in reciept of hb and i know that they dont take long to pay any arears so it sounds like they have spent the money! its either paid to the landlord or the tenants if they had opted for the payments to go directly to you, you would have recieved letters from the council.
it saddens me that this happened to you and it irates me that people who do this give the words DSS a bad name.
im currently a mum my partner works full time and we have never paid rent late. the HB is always paid directly to us and we top it up to make the rent.
we are currently looking for a new property and are currently being turned down as soon as the words DSS comes into it!
it makes me so mad!!
i would definately 'dob' them in!!!

[KJD]

Thanks Hannahbella - I'm sorry I didn't pick up on your post (email notification didn't work?!)

In the end, I called the council and although they couldn't discuss because of DP, I asked that a note be put on their file that they hadn't paid their rent and had 'done a runner'. The lady said she would and added that if we ever got ourselves into this position again (er not likely!), that after arrears of two months we should contact the council and they would pay us direct.

A week or so later, OH got a call from the Fraud department of either the council or HB to say they were investigating the tenants as, yes, they had been getting HB all along!

We will be doing all we can to help them in their investigations!

[Esio Trot]

Originally Posted by KJD

We are a private landlord with tenants who receive housing benefit. We received just one rent payment from them after they started getting HB and then no rent. They kept assuring us that the rent would be paid when their HB arrears were paid to them but needless to say never arrived. They've now gone and the flat is back in our possession.

Bit late now, but as soon as they were 8 weeks in arrears, you should have banged a letter into the council stating this. You would then have got payments direct.

I don't think you can do much now.

[KJD]

Thanks E T. It's been a learning curve! And we won't be letting it happen again.

We've recently found out that one of the tenants is the daughter of a friend of a friend of a friend... so we've quietly put the word out to find out where they are now. I seriously doubt there's any chance of recovering any the rent arrears, but it would give us great pleasure to pass the info back to the council, plus be able to put a 'forwarding address' on all the post we're now getting for them.