URGENT. Do you rent from a HOUSING ASSOCIATION? Do you claim HB Then please READ THIS.

[HelenaDove]

Many tenants are now receiving letters from their housing associations asking for their rent to be paid weekly in advance.

Example. You do not appear to be paying your rent in line with your tenancy agreement. For example you may not be paying your rent weekly in advance.

Please contact us on the above no. to discuss your rent account so we can advise you how best to keep your rent payments up to date and prevent further letters being sent.

When i recieved the first letter on the 14th June i was told by HA when i phoned them they tried to say that it was because of a break in our claim about 4 years ago. He backtracked when i told him that was rubbish then after talking to someone in the office he said it was sorted.

3 weeks later (last week ) we got an identical letter. Rang them up. Told rent now must be paid weekly in advance. Despite them accepting it the way it is for the past 23 years.

HB is paid 4 weekly in arrears.

Got a letter today telling us that 4 weeks rent is outstanding. I rang them up to be told our account was a few pence in credit.

Tenants are recieving these letters when they are just a DAY late paying the rent.

I popped to the council today to tell them what was going on and i was the second person going along there today. Bloke i saw at the council was really nice and helpful. And after ringing up making enquiries to a supervisor it is evident that all housing associations are doing it.

But not everyone is aware which is why i am posting this.

A poster on another thread said it could be down to Universal Credit or the approach of it.

Why dont they put that in the letters though. Instead of frightening people with letters like this.

Disabled people, pensioners, single parents are or will be getting these letters dropping on the doormat.

Some people have even had letters seeking possesion.

Got

Crochet Belle.

Link here.

www.turn2us.org.uk/Benefit-guides/Universal-Credit/Which-benefits-will-Universal-Credit-replace#guide-content

Thanks Helena, a useful head's up as usual. I think we are about a month in credit because of having been able to work for several years and making the odd extra payment here and there. If we do get a letter, I'll offer to pay a small amount each week until the amount they want is made up. If they don't like the offer, tough, because I will do it anyway. The law may be a ass, but I can't believe it would allow HA's to evict in these circumstances and imagine the huge burden of the court fees for them if they tried it!

Silver thats what we are going to try and do. we still have our rent payment card It probably no longer works although i dont know if it can be reactivated.

I will ring them up and make them an offer.

speye.wordpress.com/2017/03/15/universal-credit-means-the-pensioner-bedroom-tax-and-24-billion-added-welfare-cost/

DH is a pensioner and disabled. Others in the same situation are getting these letters.

How are they going to pay. It looks to me like tenants will have to pay the full rent whatever because it would take a change in legislation for HB to be paid any differently than it is now. What about people who lose their DLA How are they going to pay.

Quite honestly, I think HA's are just going to have to revise their expectations sharply downwards. Unless they want the time and cost of attempting to evict large swathes of their tenants for a small amount of arrears that is demonstrably completely out of their control because of the actual law! This is something they need to be tackling with the government, not trying to palm off on tenants. They have a great deal more influence than we do in that regard.

Excellent point. The HAs and tenants could be lobby the government together and work together to do this. But once an HA has done what they have as described here then they will lose the trust of their tenants.

Another tenant said online that he had been getting one a week for TEN weeks. And these are all being sent by advanced post. Must be costing a bloody fortune.

Make housing associations subject to FoI says industry bosses
by David Sharman Published 18 Jul 2017
0
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A proposed law making housing associations subject to the Freedom of Information Act has won the backing of the regional and national press trade body.

The News Media Association is supporting a bill which has been proposed and drafted by the Campaign for Freedom of Information.

The CFOI is urging MPs who won the right to introduce their own bill in a ballot last week to sponsor their Freedom of Information (Contractors etc) Bill, which would allow the public to see information held by contractors about public services they provide.

The bill would apply to contracts delivered either by commercial bodies or charities, and would also bring local child safeguarding boards and housing associations under the FoI Act.

Parliament 1

For the bill to go forward at this stage one of 20 MPs who were successful in the 29 June Private Members Bill ballot would need sponsor it.

Maurice Frankel, CFOI director, said: “Housing associations have for years actively resisted coming under FOI. The result is that when questions are put to them they can fold their arms, look the other way and refuse to answer.

“Concern about the safety of their premises after the Grenfell fire makes that unsustainable

It IS the computer system they are using. Got another letter today. The letters from last year say they want it WEEKLY in advance Todays letter says MONTHLY in advance.

From a review from a HA employee Taken from glass door

"OneSanctuary SAP is the name of a multi-million pound software system brought in by Sanctuary in 2016, designed for use by all areas of the business. It has been an unmitigated failure, and is a huge drawback of working for this company.
The issues caused by SAP are staggering and difficult to keep track of. Because SHA tried to implement SAP in a cost effective manner, they ended up vastly under-investing in critical elements. There is no tailoring of the generically presented system ('vanilla SAP'), which is an issue as social housing is a unique environment from a service delivery and CRM perspective, whereas vanilla SAP is more geared towards providing a solution for manufacturing industries. Thus, the system uses corporate nonsensical buzzwords and methods of handling accounts which absolutely do not reflect industry practice.
Here are just some examples of the more specific issues faced by staff:
No rent statements have been issued since it was implemented in August 2016, and if a resident insists on a rent statement it has to be prepared manually in a spreadsheet.
The rent and calculations for accounts are hard to use, and often completely wrong. Mostly because the system was never designed to understand housing benefit payments, and this has a very convoluted workaround which a computer cannot make sense of.
SAP cannot interface with Local Authorities Housing benefit systems so payments are missed, lost or misattributed.
Direct debits do not work reliably, and for a long time following the implementation did not work at all. Front line staff are now preferring standing order.
The front end system of SAP requires far more testing and money spent on it. Each customer account is a total mess of information, with no discernible way to separate notes left between differing departments, with information left by staff often going into the wrong account entirely. This needs looking at as from a compliance (DPA) point of view the breaches are serious.
From a usability point of view, the view of a customers account within SAP CIC does not display appropriate information to the user (as stated before this is likely because the system was never designed to be used by a HA) and the user often has to go trawling around back end systems to find obviously relevant data (e.g tenancy start date, account balance, property type etc). This is a seemingly minor but considerable waste of resources"

Things change. You keep talking about how you haven't had to do x, y and z for 23 years but that's irrelevant. If you rented privately you would have to pay a month in advance so i don't see the big issue. Like i said things change, and you have to adapt. There's no point getting annoyed when its gonna happen whether you like it or not. Just start planning your finances so you can get ahead when they ask for it.

Did you bother to read my last post on this thread LAZY.

ALL tenants that rent from this HA have been getting these letters even ones who are way ahead with their rent.

SAP was never meant to be used by housing associations.

Lazy is right. Companies and Associations change all the time. Your dislike to UC is well known, but in any big company you are often likely to get conflicting information depending during times of change. Is it good? No. But thats life. As a resident all you can do is make sure you are up to date with your payments.

I wouldn't start stressing about what computer system they use - that's for them to worry about. Don't try to start a revolution.

Universal credit is causing so many problems. The delay of five weeks between claiming and receiving means many cannot pay their rent or essential bills.
www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/universal-credit#first
This is terrifying for many of us who are disabled and have no means of raising money to cover this period.

We arent a UC household We are a state pension household.

Wow Gin So you know more than the expert ive copied and pasted Pray do tell

My HA insist that everyone has a week's rent in hand by the end of the 12 month statrter tenancy. They won't issue the 5 year fixed term tenancy if not.

Ive been here 24 years We are already ahead from 1994 plus we paid to be a month ahead back in 2009

we paid to be another EXTRA month ahead in 2009

Gin you are aware the data protection laws have tightened recently

Yes, Helena, we have been having thus issue for the past 12 months...

Um actually, please DO try to start a revolution! How anyone can imagine the government knows or cares what they're doing at this point is a mystery.

You said your account was in credit by pennies? But now you are a month ahead? So there isn't a problem for you - you're already there?

Check your tenancy agreement. Usually there is a clause that "rent is payable weekly, in advance". Depending on when you pay during the month, it could be that some 'weeks' you arent in advance but that catches up when you make next months payment. If letters are issued by computer, the system isnt going to know that it can expect a payment in a week/two weeks. It will just see that THIS week, you've fallen into arrears and send a letter. With all the benefit changes and UC, housing associations are going to need to be on top of non payers to prevent lots of arrears building up. With the delays in UC, they need to be reminding folk of their obligation to pay so when the benefit is actually received by the tenant it gets handed over to the council/HA and isnt used to pay off all the loans they have had to take out to cover the cost of luxuries like, I dont know..eating! in the waiting period. UC is an awful system thats putting far too many people into poverty and those who are in financial trouble already are the worst affected. It sucks.

we are not affected by UC Because we are a state pension household. In our case UC is nothing to do with it. I thought UC may be something to do with it and they were just pumping out these letters at random to cover that eventuality ..........this is what i thought when i posted this thread last June.

UNTIL i spoke to other tenants who are WAY in credit on their rent accounts

UNTIL the whistleblower posted on glass door last August.

Ive copied and pasted it above.

The letters last year said they wanted it weekly in advance This latest letter says MONTHLY in advance.

"From a compliance (DPA) point of view the breaches are serious"

I suspect it doesnt matter as much as the other DPA breaches that have been in the news though because its only tenants.

I’ve just received the same letter contacted HA told I needed to be a month in advance. UC get paid 4 weekly in arrears which is always paid in full when I receive it and I also pay a bit extra on top. Apprently it’s still not good enough and they want me to pay an extra £30 per month until arrears is paid and up until I am a month in advance already explained I am unable to afford this, no budging.