HELP ADVICE NEEDED PLEASE/HOUSING COSTS

Good Evening,

UC have cut my housing cost award by £240.
Unfortunately me and my wife seperated 18 months ago and she left the property.
I notified UC and took her off the current claim so my claim for UC which includes an award for housing costs were just claimed by me.
Now after some 18 months they have cut my benefit for housing by £240 on the grounds that my wifes name is on the tenacy aggreement, so she is liable to pay half, the £240 that they have not awarded me.
Any help on this subject would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

spitfire64 wrote:Good Evening,

UC have cut my housing cost award by £240.
Unfortunately me and my wife seperated 18 months ago and she left the property.
I notified UC and took her off the current claim so my claim for UC which includes an award for housing costs were just claimed by me.
Now after some 18 months they have cut my benefit for housing by £240 on the grounds that my wifes name is on the tenacy aggreement, so she is liable to pay half, the £240 that they have not awarded me.
Any help on this subject would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Hello and welcome spitfire64

Sorry to read your predicament this morning.

This article explains how you can transfer the tenancy to you.

https://www.buckles-law.co.uk/blog/joint-tenancies-and-relationship-breakdowns/

Housing regulations and Universal Credit rules can be complex.  For expert local advice contact a welfare adviser.  https://advicelocal.uk/

You can also obtain free advice from a solicitor.

https://freelegalanswers.org.uk/Users/Account/UserAgreement

Let us know you get on please.

@S
If you have a good relationship with your landlord and s/he wants to keep you as a tenant, then it could be worth asking for the tenancy agreement to be amended so that you are the sole tenant. Proceed with caution if you are on a periodic tenancy (an Assured Short-hold tenancy that has expired and lapsed into a periodic tenancy): only you can judge whether your landlord would react favourably to the situation. It would mean that they (the landlord) continue to get all their rent paid.

It may even be that your local authority can give you some free advice. Councils are keen to keep people in their private rented homes so that they (the councils) don't have to add new people onto the waiting list / arrange emergency accommodation.

It is quite difficult for landlords to evict tenants right now. It is in your landlord's best interests to help you rather than evict you.

Here is a selection of advice that might be helpful (I appreciate it is not specific to your query). It just illustrates the eviction process and demonstrates why it is in your landlord's best interests to help you instead of evict you, in case s/he needs any persuasion  

https://www.gov.uk/search/all?keywords=section+21+eviction&order=relevance



(Caveat: I have used the most up to date information that I can find. I am not trained in any aspect of law, on the contrary, I had a temp' job in a solicitor's office when I was a student).

A big thank you to both the replies and valid advise that i have been giving, it is really appreciated and i am now in a far better position as knowing where i stand on this now.
So am i right into thinking that in practice the only way legitimately as to get my wife who no longer lives with me of the original tenancy agreement, which is secured is by applying to the Court?, but my landlords which are Council can agree to amend.
For the record i did inform both the Council that we had seperated and i requested sole tenancy of the property but they never gave me an answer.
At the same time i also reported this to UC, but never received a reply.
It just seems odd that it has taking UC 18 months to impose the fact that and despite knowing she has not been living at the property, they suddenly want to rely on the tenancy agreement as a means, rightly or wrongly to stop half of the award for housing and expect someone who no longer lives at the property to pay half the rent each month.
Kindly advise, and again thanks for taking the time to answer my queries.

@S
I presume that you kept records of when you advised the council and DWP.

Am I right in thinking that the council have 2 separate departments for council housing and for housing element of UC? There may be an error in their communications with each other.

As you clearly informed 'the council' and DWP about your situation in a timely manner then it looks like there was maladministration from both in not amending their records. I presume you used your UCjournal to inform the DWP of your change of circumstances and that you have a record of that; if not it might be an idea to submit a Subject Access Request (or whatever this is now called) to prove you provided the information in a timely manner.

I think the fact that the council did not respond to your request for sole tenancy needs to be followed up with a written complaint that they failed to respond to you. Did you make that request in writing/keep a copy?

I think it is important to be able to demonstrate that you did everything that you could have done to rectify this situation (it looks like you did everything right). You cannot be blamed for the failures of DWP and the council to correctly respond to your disclosures about this situation.

It has been my experience that the best way to deal with the council is via email.

spitfire64 wrote:A big thank you to both the replies and valid advise that i have been giving, it is really appreciated and i am now in a far better position as knowing where i stand on this now.
So am i right into thinking that in practice the only way legitimately as to get my wife who no longer lives with me of the original tenancy agreement, which is secured is by applying to the Court?, but my landlords which are Council can agree to amend.
For the record i did inform both the Council that we had seperated and i requested sole tenancy of the property but they never gave me an answer.
At the same time i also reported this to UC, but never received a reply.
It just seems odd that it has taking UC 18 months to impose the fact that and despite knowing she has not been living at the property, they suddenly want to rely on the tenancy agreement as a means, rightly or wrongly to stop half of the award for housing and expect someone who no longer lives at the property to pay half the rent each month.
Kindly advise, and again thanks for taking the time to answer my queries.

ive been down this road myself they quoted she was first on the property and was trying to force me out by any means

i had to get an mp involved in this affair and was offered a single bedroom property not a 2 bed house

did you let them know in writing and also within your yearly hb document?

I suspect you would have filled it in as a single person as i had to do on hb document and also the uc document

in my eyes im like you the tenancy agreement means nothing as long as the hb and uc forms are filled out right as your single then you havent commited fraud as they would say you have done

Caker wrote:@S
I presume that you kept records of when you advised the council and DWP.

Am I right in thinking that the council have 2 separate departments for council housing and for housing element of UC? There may be an error in their communications with each other.

As you clearly informed 'the council' and DWP about your situation in a timely manner then it looks like there was maladministration from both in not amending their records. I presume you used your UCjournal to inform the DWP of your change of circumstances and that you have a record of that; if not it might be an idea to submit a Subject Access Request (or whatever this is now called) to prove you provided the information in a timely manner.

I think the fact that the council did not respond to your request for sole tenancy needs to be followed up with a written complaint that they failed to respond to you. Did you make that request in writing/keep a copy?

I think it is important to be able to demonstrate that you did everything that you could have done to rectify this situation (it looks like you did everything right). You cannot be blamed for the failures of DWP and the council to correctly respond to your disclosures about this situation.

It has been my experience that the best way to deal with the council is via email.

Good Evening, i recievedthis email this afternoon from the person at the Council who is dealing with this matter it reads "Having looked at your rent account it looks like the Council have now confirmed you have full rental liability at the property. I would now expect you to receive the correct Housing Element"
I am not sure what this actually means.
I have now on two occasion explained the situation and politely asked UC to respond to my questons, but to no avail.
I have explained notification of my seperation and the fact that she no longer lived at the property via my journal but they have not replied. Thanks.

Good Evening,  i recievedthis email this afternoon from the person at the Council who is dealing with this matter it reads "Having looked at your rent account it looks like the Council have now confirmed you have full rental liability at the property. I would now expect you to receive the correct Housing Element"
I am not sure what this actually means.
I have now on two occasion explained the situation and politely asked UC to respond to my questons, but to no avail.
I have explained notification of my seperation and the fact that she no longer lived at the property via my journal but they have not replied. Thanks.

It reads to me that your wife is no longer liable for half the rent (£240) and you are solely liable.  Your rent should be fully paid by DWP.

If in doubt, ask for confirmation that your rent allowance is now £480.

Hope this is the end of the matter.

Oncilla2 wrote:

Good Evening,  i recievedthis email this afternoon from the person at the Council who is dealing with this matter it reads "Having looked at your rent account it looks like the Council have now confirmed you have full rental liability at the property. I would now expect you to receive the correct Housing Element"
I am not sure what this actually means.
I have now on two occasion explained the situation and politely asked UC to respond to my questons, but to no avail.
I have explained notification of my seperation and the fact that she no longer lived at the property via my journal but they have not replied. Thanks.

It reads to me that your wife is no longer liable for half the rent (£240) and you are solely liable.  Your rent should be fully paid by DWP.

If in doubt, ask for confirmation that your rent allowance is now £480.

Hope this is the end of the matter.

Thanks and hopefully this will now be the end of it.
Thanks to everyone who has helped me out on this issue, it has helped me out immensley.
Appreciated.

If you have the time, keep us updated with any developments.

Just an update UC only paid half the Housing costs (£240) into my bank account today, this despite me ringing and speaking to a member of its staff to explain what my Landlords had advocated and in the journal entry after this converstation he stated that the money would go into today.
Add to this UC are not answering nor willing to communicate through the journal, this is becoming a joke now and really is not the standard that i would assume they had an obligation to fulfill.
Is it any wonder why hundreds of people loose their rented property, if my experience is anything to go by.
UC, and its working practices are not fit for purpose imo
So annoyed with all of this.

@S
Sorry to read of this. Since the council have completed their part, I wonder if it might be worthwhile now raising a complaint to your DWP district manager and copying in your council worker so they they are fully aware of the steps you have taken towards this with DWP.

Your address here

date here

My ref: (your national insurance number) here

(Insert name of DWP district manager here)
(Insert DWP district manager postal address here)


Dear (Insert name of your DWP district manager here)

Re: UC Housing element

I am writing to confirm that I have now received confirmation from (insert name of your local authority here), that I  have sole liability for my rent since my partner left the property permanently.

My monthly rent liability is now £480. Please adjust the housing element of my universal credit claim in line with this change of circumstances which was declared to DWP on (insert date you first told them of the change) via (insert whichever way you told them e.g. telephone or journal message).

Any queries should be addressed to (insert name of council worker here).

Thank you, in anticipation of a swift resolution.

Yours sincerely





Spitfire

CC: (Insert name of council worker and name and address of council here)

Sorry to read that your situation has not been resolved yet.

To expedite matters you could also contact your MP.

https://www.writetothem.com/

added some more info to the document

Dear (Insert name of your DWP district manager here)

Re: UC Housing element

I am writing to confirm that I have now received confirmation from (insert name of your local authority here), that I have sole liability for my rent since my partner left the property permanently.

date ex partner left

informed uc and hb

dated

My monthly rent liability is now £480. Please adjust the housing element of my universal credit claim in line with this change of circumstances which was declared to DWP on (insert date you first told them of the change) via (insert whichever way you told them e.g. telephone or journal message).

please note since my ex partner left and payments have commenced from then on at the full rated value of rent even with the change of circumstances which I informed them of on the above dates

Any queries should be addressed to (insert name of council worker here).

Thank you, in anticipation of a swift resolution.

Yours sincerely

The advice to go to your MP or make a complaint is justified as the DWP seem not to be aware of or following their own guidance - and also the regs here
See
http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2019-0465/Joint_tenancies_v6.0.pdf
Untidy tenancies
An untidy tenancy is where the claimant is a joint tenant with someone who no
longer lives in the property.
If a joint tenant(s) abandons the property and has not been removed from the
tenancy, the claimant can be treated as liable for the total rent This can apply to
both SRS and PRS cases.
and
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/890312/admf2.pdf
Failure to pay by the person who is liable
F2089 A claimant is treated as liable1 to make payments where
1. the person who is liable is not making payments and
2. the claimant has to make payments in order to continue to live in the
accommodation and
3. the claimant’s circumstances are such that it would be unreasonable to expect
them to make other arrangements and
4. it is reasonable to treat the claimant as liable to make the payments.
1 UC Regs, Sch 2, para 2(1); 2, para 2(2)

This is helpful information:

New advice from the DWP about complicated Universal Credit calculations

16 October 2020

Following our recent discussions with DWP, we're able to provide clarification on issues that housing associations have raised recently. This update provides information from the DWP to explain how Universal Credit payments are calculated based on different tenancies.

This update provides information for the following tenancies:

Absent Joint Tenant cases (Untidy tenancies).
Supported accommodation.
Shared ownership.

https://www.housing.org.uk/news-and-blogs/news/new-advice-dwp-universal-credit-calculations/