Council on my case all the time ...aibu ?

[rachybachyboo]

I rent my home through council.
I have been a tenant for 4 years with them.
I have been employed for 3 and a bit years and currently unemployed for the past 6 months.
I receive UC

The past few months I've had constant messages from the council.
I get paid the 29th of the month and I get a message
"Hi it's Lisa ..just to let you know your rent payment needs to be paid today"

It's paid every month on time,never been in arrears.
Then middle of the month il get A phone call from housing officer reminding me my rent is due in a fortnight.
I'm sick of it
Aibu ?

@rachybachyboo

The rent is charged weekly to your account on a Monday. If your claiming UC they like a monthly payment. I get my UC on the 29th and I pay on the 29th When I worked it was paid the 30th of each month. It's never in arrears

So when is your rent payment due? If it's charged to your account weekly but you only pay on 29th, you could be 4, 3, 2 or 1 week overdue and that's why they are reminding you. If you are constantly in arrears, whether intentionally or not, you really shouldn't complain that you are receiving reminders.

I think some people on this thread are confusing receiving ignorable reminder emails and texts with an actual person actually calling you regularly and actually expecting you to listen/speak to them.

PP has it right that the broad official assumption is that anybody on benefits must be very stupid and probably prime candidates for 'training' programmes like the one Homer Simpson was sent on, where they were urged to throw their rubbish in a bin instead of just flinging it out of the nearest window, which was what they assumed you'd naturally do. Only difference is The Simpsons is meant to be absurd comedy; this is real life.

They can prefer all they like, but somebody should sit them down and gently explain in simple words with few syllables that most people on benefits tend not to be especially well off and thus, for some reason

Will the same person sit OP down and gently explain in simple words with few syllables that most people on benefits tend not to be especially well off and are far more likely to miss their rent deadline and therefore the Council will put steps in place to try and avoid that.

@AwaAnBileYerHeid

It's their property, they are entitled to take the necessary steps to ensure they get paid.

Nope. They're not entitled to treat people like they've been unreliable re payments & make them feel shit, when they've never been late with payments. Council tenants are just SS entitled to peaceful enjoyment of their home as private tenants or mortgage payers.

If my bank started doing this and didn't stop when asked not to, I'd be moving my mortgage! Unfortunately when you're renting you don't have this option!

@SmileyClare

Have the Housing element of UC paid directly to your landlord

Universal credit will not do this. Tenants have to arrange to pay it themselves out of their monthly allocation. This is a new government idea designed to teach people on welfare how to budget. More patronising nonsense

Op, I quite agree, it's annoying. My HA have a housing officer who rings me every month to remind me in a very condescending tone! Does she really think I won't pay if she doesn't ring?
I've got a bloody direct debit set up.

I hope you can find employment soon. Trying to survive on Universal credit is really miserable. I've been there and its awful x

Housing associations can request the money from UC direct (not sure if it's the same for councils) but need to give a reason. The default is that it will go to the tenants bank account. UC used to only do this for 3 or 6 months and then default back to the tenant but seem to have given up doing this.

This isn't relevant to the OPs case though if she doesn't want to do this.

@rachybachyboo

The rent is charged weekly to your account on a Monday. If your claiming UC they like a monthly payment. I get my UC on the 29th and I pay on the 29th When I worked it was paid the 30th of each month. It's never in arrears

If your account is always in credit on your rent statement then ask why they are calling you. Seems like a big waste of time for all concerned.

Have you asked her to stop? I would do so, and if she continues, raise a complaint.

For those of you saying get universal credit to pay it I assume your not on universal credit so I will explain

NEVER DO THIS they pay your rent when they feel like it people have had money docked from uc to go directly to the landlord for months and they haven't paid it they group it up and pay in bulk so your in arrears there are ongoing cases where the money has been taken at source for rent not turned over to the landlord in a timely manner the landlord has gone to court and got a court order to get it deducted from uc the person now has arrears being taken out plus the rent being taken out and is in a worse financial position than before effectively paying twice for there rent they cannot change back to paying the rent themselves as in most cases debt management will not allow this "because your in rent arrears" which obviously would never had happened if UC had paid it in the first place

It is the courts position that YOU are responsible for paying your rent on time not universal credit

I get text reminders for haircuts

That's not really the same.

I get these calls from HA too. I have a monthly direct debit set up for goodness sake.

I don't need a "Mr. Thompson from Housing Association here, I need to check you're paying your rent this month, what date are you paying it?" when it's the same answer every time .. yes I have a direct debit set up, thanks bye Mr. Thompson.

OK smiley, I guess your other option is private sector rental, I'm sure they'll be far less patronising.

I pay every month on the 28th as that's when my UC goes into my account.

And I used to get the same calls or a text reminding me. Tbh I think it s because I don't have a DD set up. I don't do that in case there's an issue with UC.

However I have also overpaid to ensure with are around 6-8 weeks ahead ...and since then all the calls from them have stopped. This means if my husband has a bad month with his business we have some breathing space.

[quote rwalker]@ILoveYouMoreTheEnd
Just say well no shit Sherlock it's due every month on the 29th

Ahh the joys of working with the general public when you are doing your job.[/quote]
I also work with the GP and have done since I was 14 years old. I would be embarrassed making this call it sounds over and above what is necessary especially when the OP has been a model tenant regarding payments!

I think in special circumstances, UC will arrange to pay rent directly to a landlord. It's called an Alternative Payment Arrangement and is for vulnerable people or those with learning difficulties who have difficulty budgeting.

It sounds like a terrible idea as pp mentioned above and I guarantee you'd still get those reminder calls from your council!

For those of you saying get universal credit to pay it I assume your not on universal credit so I will explain

You assume wrong. I am on universal credit, I do get them to pay the rent directly and I check the account every month and have never had an issue at all.

That would annoy me immensely. Challenge it.

They prefer people on benefits to be a month ahead
They can prefer all they like, but somebody should sit them down and gently explain in simple words with few syllables that most people on benefits tend not to be especially well off and thus, for some reason, don't usually have large cash reserves to enable them to do this. I bet a huge proportion of FT-working homeowners would struggle to pay a month ahead for their mortgage payments.

This, so much this.

@Sheerheight

OK smiley, I guess your other option is private sector rental, I'm sure they'll be far less patronising.

What's your point? I'm not allowed to complain because I'm an HA tenant? Rent privately if I don't like it?

@Sheerheight

OK smiley, I guess your other option is private sector rental, I'm sure they'll be far less patronising.

Oh, right. So those of us in social housing just need to suck up and shut up? Got it.

@Theunamedcat

For those of you saying get universal credit to pay it I assume your not on universal credit so I will explain

NEVER DO THIS they pay your rent when they feel like it people have had money docked from uc to go directly to the landlord for months and they haven't paid it they group it up and pay in bulk so your in arrears there are ongoing cases where the money has been taken at source for rent not turned over to the landlord in a timely manner the landlord has gone to court and got a court order to get it deducted from uc the person now has arrears being taken out plus the rent being taken out and is in a worse financial position than before effectively paying twice for there rent they cannot change back to paying the rent themselves as in most cases debt management will not allow this "because your in rent arrears" which obviously would never had happened if UC had paid it in the first place

It is the courts position that YOU are responsible for paying your rent on time not universal credit

The older system for UC paying landlords direct used to be total shite for a number of reasons. They have now, finally, moved to a newer system so anyone with direct payment set up in the last year or so shouldn't have the same issues.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

The problem at Sanctuary Housing.

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"

@Geamhradh

My bank sends me an email monthly to tell me my direct debit will go out on such a date. The tax office email me to tell me my payment is going out on the 16th. I don't see an issue.

my bank has never emailed me about a SO or DD?

I think that's a bit weird!

@BoredZelda people might ...I don't
I pay on time when I get paid
They probably could spend their time helping others who are actually in need of the gentle reminders

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I think some people on this thread are confusing receiving ignorable reminder emails and texts with an actual person actually calling you regularly and actually expecting you to listen/speak to them.

PP has it right that the broad official assumption is that anybody on benefits must be very stupid and probably prime candidates for 'training' programmes like the one Homer Simpson was sent on, where they were urged to throw their rubbish in a bin instead of just flinging it out of the nearest window, which was what they assumed you'd naturally do. Only difference is The Simpsons is meant to be absurd comedy; this is real life.

I think you're confusing OPs assertion that she pays on 29th with her rent not being overdue. If OP is overdue on her rent, it's quite usual for housing to call and remind that payment is due. Councils stipulate when payments are due, and if you don't pay on the date something is due, then it's overdue.

[quote rachybachyboo]@BoredZelda people might ...I don't
I pay on time when I get paid
They probably could spend their time helping others who are actually in need of the gentle reminders [/quote]
Just because you pay when you get paid, doesn't mean your account is not overdue; if your rent is charged weekly but you only pay at the end of the month, then unless you have paid a month in advance, you are always overdue. That's probably why housing remind you; you just need to politely confirm that you're paying on 29th, as always. They are just doing their job and can't actually distinguish your overdue account from any other overdue account. But hey, let's all just blame the council.

My account is always paid on the 29th
Previously 30th
She clearly states every time just reminding you it's due on the 29th ...so there's no reason to remind me ...she can clearly see on her computer my payment date.
My account on the 28th is normally in credit by over £1
So it's never in arrears

hey let's all blame the council

Shall we blame the tenant then? Op isn't at fault. I get these "reminder" calls too. They're not ruining my life or anything but I agree with the Op; they're pretty patronising and I roll my eyes every time.

I pay my £600 rent on the 3rd of every month and without fail I'm called the week before to remind me the rent is due on the 3rd..

This probably is a blunt tool used for all tenants, I can't be angry with the person on the phone but what a waste of resources for cash strapped local councils.