I have just moved in to a privately rented property. I do not know the landlord personally and had never spoken to them before in my life until I applied to the advert on the open rent website.
I receive (atleast I did) the housing element of universal credit to help me to pay my rent.
When I moved in I uploaded the tenancy agreement on my UC portal as advised. They came back to me and said I need to provide evidence of my address and housing costs.
I was confused as the rent etc is all detailed in the tenancy however the landlord promptly wrote me a signed letter addressed to me at the new place FAO universal credit with the required details to support my claim.
Somebody called me the next day to clarify a few points (making sure I don't know the landlord personally, asking who else lives with me etc)
I answered honestly and UC said they'd get back to me shortly with a decision on my housing costs. That decision came back and the verdict was they would not be paying my housing costs. A generic letter was put up on my UC portal saying I hadn't provided enough evidence to satisfy them that I lived where I said I live and haven't shown evidence of housing costs(??)
Confused, I called them pretty upset and said I don't know what's going on here but I've done everything asked of me. The UC representative was sympathetic and said she would escalate it to a manager who would look at the claim.
Days later I check my UC portal and the decision has come back exactly the same. I'm entitled to my personal entitlement but no housing costs.
I contact them again, and again, and eventually they make an appointment for me to take my documents (IE tenancy etc) to be verified at my local job centre - that appointment was today.
I arrive there at 1pm with my tenancy agreement and some new documents I've been able to collect (a council headed letter regarding my children's school meals, more paperwork from the energy company) and before I've even sat down the advisor tells me that it's already gone above his head and the decision maker has rejected the housing element of my claim.
I'm completely baffled by this point and ask him what the problem is. He said there was several things "the decision makers" weren't happy with, a spelling mistake of the landlords name was one thing he mentioned but he offered no further context. He went on to say that during lockdown they saw a huge influx of fraudulent / contrived claims and now they leave no stone left unturned. He asked whether I could provide anything else. I said well no I've only been here just over a week I don't have anything else.
I'm then reminded of the tenancy deposit protection scheme and he asked whether I could provide the certificate for that. I was able to and said of course. He added a "to do" task for me on my journal which was exactly the same "to do" as I've done three times now (uploading the same documents) and said I could ask for a mandatory reconsideration and I'm now at the mercy of the same decision maker again I think.
If they reject it again I won't be able to remain here as I can't afford to.
I don't know what's going on here. I don't know the landlord personally. I'm not trying to defraud anybody of anything. I'm a lone parent who has never had any issues with the housing element of UC and now I may be at risk of homelessness.
Landlord is equally as dumbfounded. We are both completely genuine.
What on earth am I going to do?