If what you say is true the house doesn't sound like it's in the best condition but I’m afraid I don’t have any sympathy for you. You should have picked up on this before you moved in and made him put it right before withholding rent. You have not been socially housed by the council and you have chosen to rent privately from a landlord. Whether you get housing benefit or not is not his concern and is totally your responsibility. When you moved into the property a tenancy agreement is considered to have started, regardless of whether you have the paperwork or not. The landlord should have provided you with a written agreement to make his life easier, but he doesn’t have to do this. I had a tenant who claimed HB and it took a full 3 months for me to get any money backdated and it was only backdated from when she submitted her forms, she had to pay the rest. If you're saying you still haven’t submitted the forms then he’s got another 3 months to wait AT LEAST! It also looks like you may not be entitled to it being backdated if you’ve net even submitted your claim yet. I feel you have been let down by an unprofessional landlord but at the same time it’s your responsibility to find out what you need to know before you rented the place. You should have contacted the council beforehand and ensured you had the right paperwork if you planned to claim HB etc

Regardless of the repairs situation you are not entitled to withhold the rent, and in this case the grounds for eviction (the condition of being 2 months behind on the rent) are mandatory which means the court MUST grant possession to the landlord, the court has no say in it. The other ‘lies’ on the form are irrelevant, the rent arrears alone are mandatory grounds for possession. In addition your landlord will claim for the rent arrears and if you can’t pay a court order will be issued against you meaning you’ll find it very difficult to rent a house in the future. Also the council will not house you as they consider you to be ‘voluntarily homeless’. Sorry if this sounds harsh but renting a property is a serious thing and your landlord can’t turn round to the mortgage company every month and tell them a sob story. He has to pay, every month, in full, no excuses. Looks like you’ve had a free house for a few months but I wouldn’t bank on any other landlord letting a place to you with a court judgement against you. Best thing you can do is try to pay off your debts before the eviction date, then the grounds wont apply anymore, you get to keep your house, landlord gets his rent, everybody’s happy!

 

A few problems here.

1) Earlier you say that you couldnt calim for housing benefit until you got the tenenacy agreement which was not until October.
2) Above you say you put the caim in after a couple of weeks.

Now which is it. Before you start saying things I would suggest that you get YOUR facts straight and stop trying to rip the tax payers off.

If you can afford to run a a decent mnotor then you can afford to pay your own bloody rent.

I am sorry for having a rant but these people who scrounge off the gopvernment and then complain really piss me off.

 

I'm sorry to sound harsh (actually no I'm not) but why should the taxpayer pay for you to "maybe" make a go of a business venture? Would it not have made more sense for both of you to get jobs and work on "the business" part time? If you were truly committed you would have done. If I were your Landlord I'd have evicted you after the first payment was missed. You get nothing for nothing in this world. As for him doing agency work, why doesn't he get something contracted and full time so that you can pay your rent? Its not hard, there are jobs out there.

Debs

 

Trust me a agent is not gonna let you rent a flat and then wait 4 months for paperwork to be sorted

 

lol tim

 

so how's your rs1800 fiesta you recently bought on job seekers

 

What fiesta??????

 

Right, we submitted a claim for housing benefit about two weeks after moving in but the claim could not be looked at as we had no tenancy to back the claim up, had to close our application. Meaning we have now had to submitt a new application now we have the agreement.

I'm puzzled by the whole decent motor thing we have an L reg Orion, so not exactly a BMW or something.

To be honest there are plenty of people who scrounge alot more than either me or my partner, but to be fair everyone goes through rough patches. I really hope if it happens to any of you lot people are as nasty to you.

My boyfriend didnt post on here wanting mass amounts of sympathy, just a bit of advice, i really dont see who a barrage of insults is fair or called for.

 

you get housing benefit when u start your own business?sweet,what else can i claim for then do loads of cash in hand jobs to screw the tax paying public????
i get embarassed when i pay my rent a week or 2 late (even when i have asked for consent!!)i work bloody hard to pay my rent and when i couldnt work due to ilness recently i scrapped my plans for building a nice car i had most the bits for and sold bits on ebay so i could get rent to my land lady!
if you are starting a business why not work evenings or weekends in mcdonalds etc.. so that you can afford the basics without people like me funding your "only fools and horses" dreams?
makes my blood boil that i have to do so much to live yet others do fuck all!

 

https://passionford.com/forum/viewto...start=0&postda ys=0&postorder=asc&highlight=
perhaps your benefit claim was refused as your partner was working so he said on the above post

 

hes got 2 passionfords accounts

Ban the cunt


and stop moaning and get another house you should have got it all sorted before you moved in

 

You really are a pair of cunts!

Why should anyone subsidies the place your living in?

Yes, I've read you heart-touching plea since my first reply..... to now It makes me laugh, in fact, it made me sick, where you want advice to not pay someone again and want people on here to give you some more excuses!

You talk about RATS? ..Your them, you sad cunts, now go and sort yourselves out.

People like you make me fucking sick!

 

I had one bad tenant ages ago, just take matters into your own hands but make sure they dont have any comebacks
James

 

Who said we wanted advice to not pay someone?


As for cunts, I guess I must fit in with the rest of you on here then.

Apart from the odd reasonably helpful reply, its just been another load of bollocks from a bunch of cunts, with nothing better to do than take the moral highground against others. My, your lives must be so fucking perfect.

And just to clear up why we rented the place, it was because the landlord was made aware of, and accepted that we were both on benefit, and that for the time being, the majority of the rent would be paid via housing benefit, as soon as a tenancy agreement was given to us.

 

I do have some sympathy for you becasue it appears you've been very naive in moving into a place BEFORE getting your HB sorted and getting all the facts you needed. If you'd have researched it and known that u needed a written tenancy agreement then you could have insisted on one BEFORE moving in. A decent landlord would have known about all this, but he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to, it's your responsibility.

But the fact remains that the landlord has NOTHING to do with your housing benefit claim and the council wouldn't talk to him about it anyway because of confidentiality laws. He is a private landlord and his only concern is that he gets the rent from you each month. Where that money comes from is your concern, not his. Because he has no say over whether you get housing benefit or how much then it's not his problem if you dont get it, you still owe him x amount of rent. I think what annoys most people is the question -
Why did you move into a place with no means to pay?
You obviously hadn't sorted the HB out and you say u were both unemployed. So how were you gonna pay? You can't just hope everything will sort itself out and you'll get HB cos u might end up in a situation where you owe 5 months rent and no way to pay it...

 

From a personal perspective i'd never let a place to a HB tenant again. I;ve got 2 at the moment who are very constrasting.
One is a decent hard working single mum, she had all the paper work sorted before she moved in, had a good relationship with the council and knew exactly what she was doing.
The second one just couldn't care less, it's not her money or house and she has no interest. She never pays her top-up without me chasing her up, I waited 3 months to get the HB payments backdated and i phoned the council endless times and she has little respect for the house or neighbours. It's also let to her for £100 below market value to give her a break but she's too scummy to care.

There are decent ones out there, but why bother doing something for the community if all you get is it thrown back in your face and endless grief.

Let privately and it's a whole different story from my experience.

 

Anyone can get HB if your income fall within a certain range.

As for making your blood boil, do you think I give a flying f*ck?

 

this forum make's me piss. If it was one of the face's saying the same everybody would be in there virtual cars with virtual baseball bats

So would anyone on here stay in a house that is rat infested with what i assume has no boiler cert's and a landlord that wont disclose a rental contract?
Would you fuck! But everyone will give it the you robbing cunt and you should be ashamed line.

Granted kreg and his mrs might not have done everything by the book.

But if i said i am living in a house that i rent that is infested by rat's and i'm sure it's got none of the cert's required by law and the landlord refuses to give me an aggrement for the rent.
I'm sure 99% of people would say dont pay the cunt

After reading this earlyer i phoned a mate who is a landlord and the cheapest house he rent's out is worth 150k and he agreed with kreg.

His word's were " you're taking the piss he'll get fucked up the arse without lube if the power's that be find out"

 

Your right i would not stay in a rat infested house which has no certificates

Unless its rent free..

You have 4 weeks to sort your housing benifit claim
and if the landlord had not given over a agreement and its not their fault
it can be backdated
My wife does housing benifit etc for the local council...

 

I don't think we have the full facts we only have the tenants version of events
which has major holes in it
major hole number ! you say your bf doesn't have a job yet on the 7th November he posts on here moaning about the mirrors on his truck he drives and his boss.
I have reposted tims link to your post and we got no comment .Considering you are asking me as a tax payer to invest in you for this reason I am out roflol

 

It does sound like the house is highly unsuitable, but to be honest the non paying tenant would say that anyway, wouldn't they. If it's such a dump why did they want to live there anyway. The property may well have a current saftey check, or there may be no gas there. It does say the gas fire chimney is boarded up and the gas tank may well be empty. The point is we haven't heard from the landlords perspective, only that the tenant is messing him around by not being able to pay the rent

Ask your mate if he'd agree with Kreg if he'd just paid out £3000 of his own money to let him live in his house rent free?

 

But the point is ANY DECENT landlord wouldnt let it get to this stage.
My mate's property's he rent's out you get the rental aggrement before you move in and all the cert's are in the kitchen on show the second they move in.
He also employ's a company to take care off the odd job's and gardening.
They get redecorated every 18 month's and new kitchen and bathroom every 3 years because he still own's them and want's to make money and not let them fall into a shit state.

 

The council pest control department will come and sort out your rats iirc....if you ring them...or at least send somebody out to assess and count your rats...and maybe negotiate with them ....that's probably all a prudent landlord would be expected to do anyway I guess?

You can contact the council directly with regards to unfit living conditions and any ''illegalities'' such as the boiler situation with the property. Surely the landlord will just evict you and sort the problem out/pay any associated fines after you've gone though...hefty as they are...he's lost not only the rent from you, but the possibility of renting to someone who would pay for months..

However....I have no sympathy if you didn't ensure you got the correct documentation when you rented the property...if you needed a tenancy agreement for your housing benefit, why leave without one? I wouldn't have signed his bit of paper if at the same time I wasn't signing a second copy for myself.

Best thing to do is find somewhere else to live and arrange payment for the back rent by whatever means....he wants to evict you...and he can....you don't want a landlord you don't trust (whether he's trustworthy or not)...and likewise.

 

To be honest, i totally agree with you. Your mate is obviously a decent landlord and he's covering his own back by ensuring he sorts out the documentation beforehand because he knows full well if he didn't then the tenant wouldn't bother. I would never let a tenant in without signing a tenancy agreement either. But in this case it's been a massive balls up and it looks to me that the tenant is now looking for reasons to justify non payment of rent. If there are problems with the house then there are set procedures to follow to get this sorted. However i can think of no real reason why the tenant should be 5 months in a property without paying any rent (except that paid upon moving in).
5 months in and the landlord is getting desperate for the rent and suddenly there are loads of problem with the property etc...

The bottom line is they shoud pay the money they owe and move out into a property that they find acceptable. If not then the law is on the side of the landlord in this case, and a court order will be made for payment of the outstanding money making it difficult for them to rent in the future. However, if there is indeed gas at the house and no safety check then the landlord is commiting a criminal offence. It depends if the landlord provided this gas sevice or not.

Kreg, it's not difficult to find a landlord who will sort the paperwork out for you, plenty will be quite happy to help fill out the claim form with you, or find out from HB what u need to do before you move in.

 

I agree with Geoff here, I have three houses I rent out and prior to any tenant moving in I have tenancy agreement prepared. On the day of them moving in I am there with a file with copies of all the certificates/documents in, this includes warranties for the cooker, frdige etc. The houses are fully redecorated pprior to them moving in and all have a new kitchen/bathroom and carpets every three years. This way the property stays in tip top condition.

I also have a local maintenance company that offer a 24 hours call out service and all the details are in the file. I also introduce the new tenants to the neighbours on the first day as well.

I have never had a tenant who has complained and have always tried to make them as happy as possible.

There has to be an element of trust between both parties and how can you trust someone who doesnt pay. Not saying it is your fault but it may be best to start afresh with a new property and landlord,

 

I hate to sound like a cynical bastard, but its fucking freeloaders like you who make everyone else pay more for everything.

And YES - I have read the thread completely, and see both sides of the coin - but if I was your landlord, then you would of been out on your ears months ago

 

bookwyse

You sound like the perfect landlord

 

I vote graceland for your land lord
they posted this same complaint about this cottage complaining of the same things 4 months ago hmmmmmmmm

 

Thanks,

Its only because I dont have a pension and the houses will be the sole source of income when I hit 50 that I tend to look after them. Also I have found that if you look after your tenants then they are more likely to do the same and respect the property.

But at the same time if someone does the dirty on me like it would appear to have by these idiots then I would be down on them like a ton of bricks.

The old addage:

DO UNTO OTHER AS YOU WOULD HAVE DONE ONTO YOU.

springs to mind here.

I think the thread should be locked now though.

 

i suggested on p1 at the beginning that we should move or remove this post
passionbenifits.com

 

I'd have chucked u out alot sooner if it was mine, and imo if ur not paying him anything why do u think hes going to bother repairing the house if hes not getting anything from it. now i know he should but its like working for nothing and having to pay petrol to get there everyday.... get a job and find somewhere else to rent simple as.

Crowds.

 

is this what is now classed as valid material for GD with the new rules

 

It would be in the muppet room but they can't squat for free in there!

 

 

I dont recall my gf saying I dont have a job. I didnt have a job when we took the tenancy on, I was on a Job Centre scheme to go self employed, which didnt happen so the beginning of October I started work.

 

The problems with the property have been there from day one, and he was made aware of them. It has not been 5 months rent free, we paid the 1st month, and notified him of the problems within a few days, yet no attempt was made to rectify the problems.
As for the rest of the rent, he was aware we would be claiming benefit for the rent, for which we needed the tenancy agreement, and having made constant reminders it took him 4 months to get the agreement to us. The council made it very clear that without the agreement ther could be no benefit claim.

Regarding the law beong on the landlords side, that may well be the case until the arrears are cleared, at which point, something else he has failed to do, will come back to haunt him. We paid a deposit to him, which hasn't been dealt with as it should.

Our benefit claim IS going through, and is being backdated, so the arrears will be cleared in 14 - 21 days, at which point his case for eviction will no longer be valid.

 

So its our fault our landlord fails to deal with the paperwork, having been asked numerous times, and having been told that no benefit claim will be processed until the council have a copy of our agreement.

 

Why not go for some professional legal advice....why ask here?....no doubt you can get legal aid for nothing aswell

and my god...I just couldn't help quoting this "It has not been 5 months rent free, we paid the 1st month" so it's not 5 months rent free, only 4 months? lol! When will Darwins theory help us here!

Jesus.

 

We moved here because it was the only place we could find that would take our dog AND HB.
As for the gas, yes it does work, and yes there is gas in the tank, its 3quarters full.

 

My god, arent you clever...... Anything else to add?

As for legal aid, as I am now working I probably wouldn't qualify. Why post here? I thought there might an element of help from others, but I was wrong, most of the users on here are a bunch of self righteous cocks.