To think that making the benefits system instant would help alleviate poverty?

[AndHarry]

Hands up, I have no experience of how the system works but as I've been reading the news and various threads on here, the same thing crops up again and again: JSA, housing and other benefit claims take so long to process that people are left destitute and once they are approved it takes so long to make changes that it's often not worth taking casual jobs.

So with the universal credit why can't job centres process claims electronically during appointments with claimants, with money paid using the 3 day payment system?

Is that totally naive?

It's great fun hey? I knocked off 10mins early to get the earlier bus but had to sit next to a peanut eating, sucky finger person!

Elfhame, stats are used in all kinds of insurance. Its not discrimination but simply using a rating system to determine the probability of risk. If the majority of people on HB were model tennants there would be no risk but obviously thats not the case.

As for the government taking on the risk not the LL, if a person can damage somebodies elses property or not pay the rent without caring then imagine how much it would go up by if taxpayers paid instead. Technically they could get HB, not pay the rent and let the state pick up double the cost.

your op presumes that the government want people out of poverty and care in some way.

They do not

job centre staff internal memo leaked

thats just a quick one, but i have personal experience of my son being needlessly and shamefully dicked around, and sanctioned for absolutley fuck all

oh couldnt come to job centre - had an interview -

Hard shit - sanctioned for 6 weeks

erm - thats 6 weeks i'm paying for - and i've already paid throuh my taxes - very very handsomely paid actually

YANBU

a few years ago i split up with exDH, he left and it was just me and baby DS, who was a few months old. it took a couple of months to be fully sorted iirc. and i had no money at all in that time, i used to have to go and eat at my parents, and, bless them, they also paid my rent when i ended up in arrears as the HB had taken so long to be sorted

but i was very lucky, most people probably don't have anywhere near that kind of support

Guardian article about dubious JC targets

Yes. I saw that memo personally last Weds. All the staff argued for an hour that it was bloody unfair and horrible.
then we went for a fag and decided to ignore it
It is completely unenforceable unlike some of the other stuff they make us do.

Elfhame sometimes its not the Landlords fault if they dont rent to people
on benefits but the fault of their mortgage companies or insurers who wont let them. This needs to be addressed.

On another note (and this is digusting) A good friend of mine inherited a two bed solid brick victorian cottage with a living room and dining room and an extension with Kitchen and large bathroom plus a 100ft Garden

The Bedrooms are doubles and the living room and dining room are very large lots of space for a famil.

As he doesnt really need the money he wanted to rent it out to a homeless family or one in cramped conditions so he contacted the local social housing association with a view to renting to someone on their waiting list.

Someone came to view it but rejected it as it did not meet their standards as it has a downstairs bathroom.

This in an area where there are 1000s on the waiting list, where families are in B&Bs or in flats with no outside space.

How many families on that waiting list would be thrilled to have a lovely home with a large garden in a nice area, these people were being denied that chance.

In the end he rented privatly at the same rent as social housing in the area, when he advertised it through an agent he had 50 applicants for it in the first day, however he believes that possibly some very deserving people were unaware of the property as it was a private rent and not on a HA or council website

At a time where LLs are being accused of greed and discrimination I was shocked that someone who wanted a give someone in need a nice home was treated that way.

He could have doubled the rent but chose not to

Just to add to the whole thing about LL not taking DSS, often it's Estate Agents policy too. When I asked a friend on behalf of my sister, he said they were classified as much higher risk (based on their stats - which ones he didn't say), that they (her EA) had had issues in the past when they did accept DSS and now most EA weren't willing to take on LL who wanted to take that risk- sometimes they could bypass with a guarantor, but often not.

I'm sure they had issues with other tenants to but the stats and past experience unfortunately led them to that rule and aside from one EA which did rent to HA peoples, the others she'd worked for would not. Hence why if you look on rightmove and other places, you can often see a trend with certain EA saying 'no DSS'.

My sister wasn't impressed, neither was I but if that's what their stats show and (from what others have said) it affects their LL insurance then I can see why they'd manage the 'risk' as they see it.

your friend sounds lovely mrsdavid

my parents have a rental property but they don't charge much for it, less than the market rate

there should be more people like them and your friend around not greedy robbing chancers

KatieScarlett couldn't most, if not all, those checks be done in person at a job centre appointment? If not, why not?

Custy poverty isn't good for anyone, why would the government not want an end to it? I'm not that cynical :)

My strong advice to HB claimants seeking private rented accommodation is to contact the Landlord (personally, if possible) with (say) 2 years of rent accounts.

This could be as a rent book, a rent account or bank statements showing regular rent payments. I'm sure most former Landlords would provide this, there may well be a legal duty on them to do this.

My question is: Why do so few tenants do this?

what do they gain harry? for themselves, their rich friends?

people claiming JSA are foced to work - for free, at companies that are owned by close friends of the tory party

i can see that benefits them nicely.

I am not cynical, i just keep up with news from different areas and there is an undeniable pattern that emerges.

HB can be paid directly to LL.

However, most LL won't accept that because if the person claiming HB is overpaid for any reason, as the LL received the money, they are liable to pay it back.

I looked into it when my SIL couldn't find anyone to rent from as she is on HB. I couldn't believe that 'no DSS' is still legal, especially as SIL had 2 years of accounts and a reference from her LL, and had a family member willing to act as guarantor.

There are insurance companies which will give cover for tenants on HB but they charge more so it is bad business sense to take on such tenants especially in places like mine where the HB is paid directly to the tenant. Yes there some people in paid work who also are bad payers as witness the previous owner of my house who had his house repossessed because of this. I know because of the many baliffs letters and visits to my address.
I agree with Strumpeton. I was outraged many years ago when the Dss removed the responsibility for paying my mortgage from me as I was really proud to be able to manage my money and not fall behind on my mortgage even though the interest was 14% at the time.

Landlords should be fucking grateful to HB claimants; the state is paying off the mortgages on their personal property empires to the tune of over £20bn a year.

Blacks and Asians don't have statistics because that would be a form of discrimination, racism. And this society has decided that's unacceptable.

Yet, people on low incomes can be discriminated against, but that's ok isn't it. Because we all know they are scroungers, don't we. Its just statistics. It can't be helped. Its how insurance works.

Blah blah blah.

Its discrimination dressed up as insurance statistics to make everyone feel better.

What happens when HB claimants can't get any social housing, or a private let, and the tax payer no longer wants to "waste" money housing these people in BnB's?

I would wager a good bet that students are the worst tenants to let to. But landlords are happy enough to do it because they can usually chin guarantors and they make a lot more money out of students than they do families.

Students are the worst tenants to let to in terms of property damage, I mean. Blim burns, wine stains on carpets, vermin etc - this is all quite normal for student houses.

urbane, they probably don't because you can't get hold of the landlords details to approach them unless you find the property on gumtree or they are listing it themselves. We tried to contact several landlords when we had a portion of our rent as HB to see if they would accept us with a bigger deposit and a guarantor. We gave up in the end as the letting agents wouldn't allow us to speak to the landlord and never got back in touch with us when they promised to ask them. One lovely letting agent informed us she "doesn't do benefits" and hung up.

KathrynKampbell, if you or any other MNetters are ever in a situation like that again, you can obtain the details including the address of the owner of the property by doing a £2 online search at the Land Registry. Lots of people don't know this, but it is perfectly legal and legitimate. You can then write to them, setting out your case and it can work - saves the landlord hassle too because they won't have to pay a fee to the agency if they deal direct with the tenant. But yes, I would say that the reasons that you cite are why prospective tenants don't contact landlords directly.

Landlords should be fucking grateful to HB claimants; the state is paying off the mortgages on their personal property empires to the tune of over £20bn a year.

What a ridiculous thing to say Wallison, have you missed all the posts reiterating that most btl mortgages and insurance companies don't allow landlords to take HB?

How are all these Landlords supposed to be fucking grateful for HB claimants when the majority have nothing to do with them?

Housing benefit pays for a claimant to have somewhere to live. No more, no less.

Its discrimination dressed up as insurance statistics to make everyone feel better.

Swop round the words 'insurance statistics' and 'discrimination' n that sentence, and it might be closer to the reality coming from this thread.

HB is one of the biggest transfers of public funds to private hands going, and those hands that it benefits are not the claimants but the landlords who are getting their mortgages paid off by tax-payers' money. Damn right they should be grateful. Still, of course they won't be - they think they have a God-given right to other people's money anyway, because that is the very definition of a landlord.

You really do hate landlords of any type with a raging passion don't you?!

Why are you so convinced that landlords are all paying off mortgages with the rent money they receive?

And why can't you see the obvious flaw in your logic?