Unable to pay full rent

[bratzdoll]

I'm a single parent currently on maternity leave so I receive UC monthly to help pay my rent and further bills. I'm private renting but I got the flat through the homelessness scheme (when you're homeless and in temporary accommodation but willing to take a private flat instead of waiting years in temporary accommodation until a council flat is available)

The benefit of private renting through the homelessness scheme is that the council are in contact with Landlords that are happy to rent to someone on UC and are usually happy to negotiate the monthly rent price.

I moved into the flat a few months ago and always pay my rent to the Landlord's agent one day before it's due just so the receive it without any problems or anything.

This month my UC was around £1100 less than it should have been because my employer incorrectly reported that I had earned around £2500 last month
I'm still only receiving SMP so I have no clue how they made such a drastic mistake but this means DD and I are living on near to nothing this month.

I sent an email to the Landlord's agent a few days before the rent was due to let them know the situation. I included screenshots of my UC Payment page so they could see the breakdown of what I normally get and see what was deducted. I did say I was able to contribute a small amount to the rent (less than £200 as I was given less than £400 from UC to live on for the month)
I also let them know that I spoke to my work coach about what happened as she's raised this with the investigation team so hopefully she'll hear back from them soon.

I spoke to the agent on the phone the day before the rent was due (I always speak to the manager btw) and she was very understanding and just said to update her with what happens. The next morning I get an email from her saying the Landlord was not happy at all (understandingly) and that I need to do whatever it takes to be able to pay the rent in full including taking out an overdraft!

I've never not paid my rent since I've lived here and it's not as if I got the dates mixed up or I spent the money on something else. The rent amount wasn't given to me for no fault of my own. I was a bit shocked at the Landlord's response as I'd literally given him more than half of what I received just to be able to contribute something. When in reality I could have kept it and spent that on myself and my daughter as we desperately need it!

There's often a discussion on Twitter about some Landlords and how they refuse to be understanding even in unavoidable situations. I understand I'm renting and effectively helping to pay off his mortgage, but this wasn't my fault at all.

(just in case anyone wants to bash me for being on benefits, I've been working full time since I was 17. It's more or less impossible to be a single parent living on SMP)

I’m a landlord but I am on your side here, OP.

As long as you were communicating with me and had a plan to catch up on your arrears I would be satisfied with that.

Personally I don't think anyone should be a LL unless they have a cushion for things like this

I agree with this. As a LL, I know that there is a risk vs reward situation when it comes to renting out property. You hope that in the long run you’ll be better off rather than out of pocket but this is the sort of thing you must take in to account. Including if the house is vacant for a long time or a tenant is unable to pay rent.

I'm a landlord and I often think like what @Bluntness100 says - why is it the landlord that must accept less payment, you don't expect Tesco or gas bill to go unpaid or take part payment.
During the previous 18 months I've only had full rent from only two out of five tenants. One stopped paying completely (nothing to do with Covid, he was a con artist), one reduced their payment by half on agreement, and one skipped a month then paid then skipped...
I rely on my rent for income - I'm a single mother (widowed). But I was better off than two of my tenants so agreed the temporary reduction, though one has still not gone back to full payment. This has hurt, but I can deal with it.
So not all landlords are greedy and unsympathetic. If I was your landlord I'd waive this months rent entirely under the assurance that it would not happen again. It's not like you spent the money frivolously - you simply don't have it for reasons beyond your control. I would appreciate the stress this would have put you under and would rather feel I had helped ease that than play hardball over money due.
But I, and you, do not know your landlords own circumstances and they may well have been relying urgently on your rent. But I agree that it is a factor of being a landlord that unexpected things come up - you may have paid your rent but the boiler could have broken down for example, leading to an expense larger than the rent.

Being a landlord is nothing like Tesco.

It is slightly more akin to the gas bill, although what you say above is incorrect. If you couldn’t pay your gas bill, part payment would be accepted while a payment plan would be worked out to help you pay the arrears.

I've messaged you

I'm staggered at some of the comments here. Honestly, if you've got nothing nice to say, say nothing!

I hope you get this resolved quickly OP. I have focussed on your posts, rather than others, so I'm not sure if this has been mentioned or even if it's of any use, but could Citizens Advice or Shelter provide any advice that hasn't been mentioned here?

My DH has a property he rents out and during Covid his tenants were affected massively and one was on SMP already. My DP agreed to allowing them to pay a reduced rent with a view to catching up later when things improved. The agent had forwarded on an email, exactly like yours, where they'd laid out exactly why they were struggling and could read the remorse in finding themselves in that situation.

Unfortunately not all landlords are as sympathetic, or have been burned by previous experiences of non-paying tenants, so I'm sorry your landlord hasn't been more sympathetic OP.

[quote julieca]@HoardingSamphireSaurus so how much does someone need to earn before they are allowed a child?[/quote]
You've mistaken me for another poster. If you read carefully you'll see...

Put a message in your UC journal and ask for a Real Time Investigation Dispute and also a mandatory reconsideration. Say you can evidence actual earnings by providing bank statements.

Also ring HMRC yourself and report an error with reported earnings.

My friend did all of the above and the correction was made and paid into her bank within 3 days by UC.

@HoardingSamphireSaurus apologies

Just in case anyone is still interested.

I called HMRC today and spoke to a very helpful lady. It turns out my work actually did submit the correct payslips to Universal Credit! Even though she wasn't able to confirm the exact amount, she could see that my employer had uploaded my payslips correctly and they didn't add up to anywhere near 2 grand let alone £2500!!

It doesn't help that I was paid twice during the UC assessment period (as I'm paid 4 weekly) but apparently someone at UC has read the payslips incorrectly and has somehow managed to royally fuck it all up!

I was given the number to UC and spoke to an advisor who took all my details down and said my work coach should be in touch by the start of next week with a resolution (hopefully including being paid the correct amount but he couldn't confirm)

I then emailed my Landlord's agent with an update and apologised for the inconvenience once again.

I've sent work like 50 emails so I'm feeling bad seeing as it wasn't even their fault!
Thank you to all in this thread who promoted me to carry on harassing work and even to the few who told me to contact HMRC. I've been so stressed I probably would have waited around hoping someone would be sorting everything out in the background!

Excellent news, both for you and your landlord! You can relax and destress over the weekend now.

Good news OP, what a relief!

That’s great news!

That is good news.
I don't know who's bright idea universal credit was, it's an absolute joke that fucks people over with no concern for the situation.
It should at least be calendar month, not 28 days.

I don't know who's bright idea universal credit was, it's an absolute joke that fucks people over with no concern for the situation.

Iain Duncan Smith.

Then later on he resigned because he was unable to accept the government's cuts to disability benefits, he said the government were balancing the books on the backs of the poor and vulnerable and that it was disgusting.

You know you're a cunt when IDS thinks you're a cunt.

I know quite a few people are are better off on UC

I think if it works well it can be good especially for bank workers

But certainly needs a few tweaks

Not sure if anyone else, has said this but I think your landlord sounds decent and your anger should not be at them. Id ask your employer to immediately give you a loan (petty cash?) this is their mistake they should be jumping to help you out. Previous place I worked boss mucked up and took cash from his own personal bank account to give someone week before Christmas when his balls up meant they didn't get paid. And that's the right thing to do. You don't have emergency savings why do you think your landlord should???

Sorry I've just read your update. UC is a joke. Hope it gets resolved promptly.

No. The OP was in a homeless shelter and has been in her current flat for only a short period of time.

Homeless shelters aren't free you know. Families housed in temporary accommodation have to claim housing benefit to cover the accommodation costs (it's exempt accommodation, so isn't covered by UC), and pay other charges (heating, lighting and sometimes water) out of the rest of their benefits.

When they finally get long term accommodation, they then have to get the rent included in their UC and deal with all the hassles that can lead to.

Because landlords should be able to cover for issues like this especially when they are aware of the op’s situation

I’m a landlord I’ve just had to buy a new boiler I can’t buy it outright thankfully can (with a nice amount of interest 🙄) pay monthly. I’ve had tenants in the past who have paid rent late as long as they inform me then that isn’t a problem these things happen

Families housed in temporary accommodation have to claim housing benefit to cover the accommodation costs

And if they're not entitled to housing benefit they have to pay the full amount. A family member needed emergency work done to their council house and were offered temporary accommodation at a cost of £250 a week. This was far more than they'd pay in a week for their actual home.

Fantastic update, OP.

This has been an eye-opener for me, I (and I'm sure my colleagues are the same) was under the impression that the RTI uploads are automatically shared with DWP and that the UC calculation process was pretty much automatic.

Makes me wonder how the hell it cost so much to set up UC now.

I had no idea that actual humans looked at the RTI figures to input them and possibly even calculate the UC entitlement.

The bit I couldn’t understand was how if the employer was paying the op £2500 she hadn’t had £2500 into her account. Because payslip = bank payment. Mostly.

And it wasn’t even the company at all

I'm entirely baffled by most people on this thread. I'm a landlord, admittedly of only one property, but if my tenant was good and they had a problem month I would probably be internally quite worried, but I'd just ask them to get caught up by the next month, and maybe buy them a coffee.
I'm not even trying to show off, I'm just a regular person with two kids and a blooming brain.
I hope its all sorted next week OP

These things happen. Don't worry about it too much. Most landlords are not nice people people anyway.

Simply reply that you had already spoken to them ( the letting agency) and cannot do anything about it until uc sorts the mess. Maybe add a sorry at the end of it