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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to ask sil to repay rent money?

85 replies

cherry2727 · 07/01/2017 01:11

Hey everyone !!
Looking for some advise so open to honest opinions. Dh and I decided to save to buy a house so moved into mil's council house and agreed to pay the rent for her for that period. Dh set up a standing order for the rent to be paid and we've paid it on time ever since. After a year, mil did a house swap with sil which was dealt with by the council. After 6 months of living in our sil's prev flat, mil received a letter stating that we are in rent arrears !! We were shocked as, as far as we are aware, we had an so set up. Upon investigation , we realised that we never changed the so and as a result have been paying our sil's rent on mil's previous house as we forgot to change the account details. We've made 6 months of payments before it came to light ! We've now brought it up with sil and she says she's sorry but doesn't have the money to repay us!!! AIBU to think that she should have known that her rent was being paid for her???

We are now moving into our house we bought and are fuming as we've had to pay the rent arrears and obv need the cash to do up our house as it needs a lot of work. We've saved up quite a bit but every penny would help. I don't want to stir any trouble but I am very tempted to be more pushy with sil to try to get her to repay the money . Should I push and risk creating family drama or just take responsibility of the error and shut up!??? Just so you know I don't have the best relationship with her but we are quite civilised.

OP posts:

beepbeeprichie · 07/01/2017 07:31

Oh OP I feel for you! Yes fair enough posters saying you should have stayed on top of the SO details but obviously you thought they were correct and the reference number referring to the property was your undoing here. Sounds like an easy mistake to make. As a result, effectively your DH's family have conned you out of cash. Their lack of remorse or willingness to put things right, even by way of small payments over a prolonged period, would hurt and anger me. YANBU. I would make sure you never do them any favours for anything, ever.

Cakeycakecake · 07/01/2017 07:33

I'd push. I'd cause drama. It's actually not your fault, it's an error that shouldn't mean you're out money. If she gives so little care, I'd mention that if taken via small claims you'd be awarded the sum in full, and I'd be prepared to take it that far too. We must be talking at least a couple of thousand for six months. I'm council tenant and that would represent over 3,000. And no way would I let that go

JanuaryMoods · 07/01/2017 07:34

I'd push as well. Ask her to pay you bck at £50 a month.

Lostwithinthehills · 07/01/2017 07:50

I agree with much of what pp have written. You should contact the council to investigate the possibility of the six months of rent you paid into the wrong account being credited to the correct account. Their records must show that you were originally paying £z by standing order for House A, then you moved to Flat B and your standing order didn't change. They must also be able to see that your sil was originally paying £y for Flat B but after swopping she paid no rent for A or B.

You or your dh are also going to have to ask your sil some searching questions. How did she believe her rent, £z, was being paid? Was it 100% housing benefit? I know nothing about the system but I thought that housing benefit was credited to the claimant and they are responsible for paying the rent so she should have known. Alternatively if housing benefit was 100% of £z and it was being paid directly to the council while your standing order continued the council has accepted £z x2 for six months and should refund you. Or accept it as a six month overpayment, in which case your sil will be able to pay you 'rent' each month.

If your sil wasn't having 100% of £z paid directly to the council on her behalf then she surely took steps to pay her first months rent. As she doesn't appear to be suggesting that she was paying £z for House A at the same time as you she obviously noticed that your standing order was still in place and she allowed your payments to continue. To my mind she has effectively stolen £z x6 from you. That's too much to just brush under the carpet and it wouldn't be you that was causing a family rift by asking her for your money back.

Megatherium · 07/01/2017 07:51

Get your mother to call to get the payments swapped over to her current flat. As that will cover 6 months' rent in advance, arrange with her to pay the equivalent amount to you.

Gallavich · 07/01/2017 07:56

Either SIL was paying the rent too, in which case her rent account will be in serious credit and she can pay you back over the next 6 months as her rent is already paid
Or she's a lying grabby bitch who knew you were paying her rent for her and she can still repay you in installments because otherwise she's blatantly stolen from you.

Jessbow · 07/01/2017 07:59

If you have done a bona fide swap via the council, surely it was up to them to swap the acc number over when the exchange took place.

Since when did you become the Tennant, not M in law? Surely M in Law is the Tennant and responsible form the rent ( even if, when you moved in you agreed to pay it surely the tenancy wasn't changed to your name?)

Can't believe council let the non payment build up over 6 months, that's a long while, and surely if you go to the council and explain that can sort it out.

ChocChocPorridge · 07/01/2017 08:06

This is surely an easy mistake to make on your part - the assumption that the reference was your MILs, not the house's

Just like I pay rent to the agent with my reference, and if I moved to another flat with the same agent, I'd still pay rent to the agent with my reference - they are the ones that give the money to the right landlord.

Original poster

cherry2727 · 07/01/2017 11:38

Hi everyone ! Thanks for your advise ... My mind has been busy all morning with this. Will talk to dh about asking her to pay in instalments ( wish me luck !) He is upset over it but clearly not upset enough to Persue after it. I want to give her benefit of the doubt but she wasn't really surprised when we told her that we've been paying her rent for 6 months! She's obv just thought that it's been Santa ! Ha!

boomboomscouncil - I'll ask hubby to ring the council on Monday and possibly ask to speak to someone other his mom Housing officer .

lostwithinthehills we've only had the initial conversation with sil and that was all she said. I feel like we need to have another conversation and get to the bottom of it like you said . I still have unanswered questions from her . Your comment really made me think that she prob did know . I will prob have to man up and push dh to have an extended conversation .

Happy new year to me!!!! Ha!!

OP posts:

dowhatnow · 07/01/2017 12:01

It sounds as if she hasn't paid the extra £50 if she is in arrears, so she hasn't done a thing to sort out the rent. Why? Is it that she hasn't been hassled by the council so genuinely hadn't got round to it thinking it was sorted. Or was she completely aware that you were paying the rent?

When you speak to the higher ups at the council office on Monday, ask what correspondence they have had with her, as well as asking if they can credit your account.

What would be the situation if the house swap had been between strangers? Surely even if it has been done in error, the council have some obligation to credit the new account. If you get unknown credits into your bank account and then spend it, I'm sure legally you are still obliged to pay it back. This sounds a similar situation to me. It shouldn't be your responsibility to get the money from sil. If it was a stranger you couldn't, therefore the council should rectify the situation by crediting mils account and chasing sil for the arrears. As a pp said, it's a pity you paid your mils arrears.

dowhatnow · 07/01/2017 12:02

In other words chase the council not sil.

LIZS · 07/01/2017 12:04

Confused, has she also been paying for her new property and therefore the council holds the extra money, so could perhaps transfer it to cover the arrears?

YelloDraw · 07/01/2017 12:15

Personallly I would have pushed with the council and got your money allocated to th correct rent account once the error in referencing came to light.

That would have left SIL in arrears not MIL.

Errors with references and allocation will happen all the time - payments can easily be reallocated to the intended account.

user1480946351 · 07/01/2017 12:36

Before getting on the council to swap monies (which is unlikely to work anyway), think about whether the MIL is going to be in trouble for subletting her council house to her family members!

Tiredmumno1 · 07/01/2017 12:43

User she isn't subletting, it says in the OP it was a house swap dealt with by the council.

mickeysminnie · 07/01/2017 12:45

You say your sil has stated that she is still in rental arrears even though you were paying the bulk of her rent? That means that she didn't even pay the extra rental of £50 per month. Which leads me to believe that she became aware of the situation and just decided to let it 'run'. I would ask to see an account of the rental payments so you can see exactly how much she paid in.
I would pursue her for the money or if your husband decides to let it lie for peace sake I would be making it very clear that you would NEVER be bailing her out again. I may be overly suspicious but I would worry that they (& I include your mil in that) would see you as a soft touch and 'responsible' for helping out less well off members of his family.

user1480946351 · 07/01/2017 12:52

User she isn't subletting, it says in the OP it was a house swap dealt with by the council

No, the MIL and SIL did a council swap. But OP and her husband are renting from the MIL, so that is separate.

user1480946351 · 07/01/2017 12:54

I would ask to see an account of the rental payments so you can see exactly how much she paid in

You wouldn't have the right to look at other peoples rent accounts, no matter how much you have accidentally paid into them.
Some of these answers are downright daft.

YelloDraw · 07/01/2017 13:00

No, the MIL and SIL did a council swap. But OP and her husband are renting from the MIL, so that is separate

They were living with MIL.

mickeysminnie · 07/01/2017 13:07

I think they are within their rights to ask sil to see the account user! But as it is such a daft suggestion what is your solution?

Ellisandra · 07/01/2017 13:12

How on earth did you (MIL) get 6 months into arrears in her new property without knowing?!

I don't think it is definite that your SIL knew you were paying the rent. Why should she know if your MIL didn't know she wasn't paying hers?

Your SIL may have thought it was related to HB - my sister gets a shit loads of benefit and accidentally had her CB stopped for 3 years without realising! She is easy come easy go and (sorry but it's true) a bit thick

Even if she realised she wasn't paying - she may have rubbed her hands gleefully and assumed it was an error by the landlord.

Certainly I see no reason why she would assume that you were still paying it, because she would think like me - you'd sure as hell know if you weren't paying your own (MIL's) the day after you first went into arrears!

The big shame here is that you paid the arrears.

Morally, SIL should pay you back, definitely - but only in instalments if it were a genuine mistake. It sounds to me like she didn't know you were paying -but now has the added problem that she has a brass neck and couldn't care less.

Incidentally - going back to my sister - she'd shrug and think "if you paid the arrears you could afford it" and really not lose any sleep over it.

user1480946351 · 07/01/2017 13:12

My solution would be have your own house, pay your own rent, and don't make such a silly mistake again because there is little you can do about it after the fact.
The SIL should of course pay it back, but there is no way to make her do so.

onadifferentplanet · 07/01/2017 13:22

I am really surprised there were 6 months of rent arrears before your MIL knew about it. My rent is paid with HB at the moment which is paid 4 weekly in arrears, almost every month I get the standard you are in arrears letter at the end of the third week even though it is in my file that HB is received and their records show this is always paid as soon as I receive it.

Original poster

cherry2727 · 07/01/2017 21:14

Hello everyone ! Just read all the responses .. Thanks for all the advise !

We rented a room in mil's house as she had a spare bedroom. She resided in the property with us and her husband. This is why she decided to do a house swap... She had two spare bedrooms and needed a smaller sized property . The council gave her a few options and one was that she could swap with someone else, so she did with my sil as sil had a smaller property and two kids. The council was aware that we were renting from mil as there is a formal process which we had to follow. It was even brought up when they came to inspect the property prior to the swap so it was all recorded on file.

I think my mil wasn't opening her mails as she had three letters stating rent arrears! ( though I did find it weird that she hadn't received any phone calls !) Hubby and I have decided to ring the council on Monday to try to see if the money could be transferred to our account. If not, we will call it a loss as he doesn't want to upset their relationship ( not happy but it's his sil so I can't do much really .. Sigh)

user1480946351 we are now moving to our new home and will be paying our mortgage . Mil was merely helping us as we were privately renting in an affluent part of London which cost us a fortune and couldn't afford to reside there and still save for our house . I understand it's a silly mistake on our side and hence why I seek the opinion of people here as I didn't want to make another silly mistake by demanding she pays back .

Thanks a lot for your help everyone - I appreciate everyone's honesty

OP posts:

ConvincingLiar · 07/01/2017 21:22

I don't think I'd ever speak to her again if it didn't get sorted. (Unless council house rent is the peanuts benefit bashers claim).

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