Housing association "week in advance"

[tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz]

Hi folks hope someone has some advice, I'm posting on behalf of family.

Person has been renting a flat through a housing association for 7 years now and tenancy agreement stated rent payments are made a week in advance. Pretty standard and DD was set up accordingly and as far as I am aware tenant has been paying fine ever since with no arrears(I'm quite certain they would have told me otherwise).

At the start of this year the HA advised their weekly rent payments were going to go down by a few pounds a week however the HA took a good 4ish months to actually adjust the DD so obviously a surplus built up. Not massive but enough to make a difference to the tenants pocket.

I'm working with the tenant to try and get this surplus back from the HA however they insist they have checked their records and claim it represents this "week in advance". To be fair they are arranging for one of their reps to come to meet us and go through all financials since the tenancy began so they are being fairly transparent in that respect however I can't get my head round the timing of this with when they should have adjusted the payment. As it implies that at some point that advance week disappeared and they have to get it back again?!

I spoke briefly on the phone to CAB today who said that without seeing the details themselves they can't comment too much but on the surface it doesn't sound right. They've advised if we're not happy after HA meet to book an appointment with CAB.

Oh and according to the HA it's actually a tenets responsibility to change their DD details? I thought the onus was one the organisation calling for the £.

Any words of wisdom? I am aware of course that the family member may at some point have gone into arrears and this may be a claw back of that but a) they would have told me and b) I'm sure the HA would have used that as a "Gotcha!" by now!

Disclaimer - prior to this I had NO knowledge of renting with HA so I'm aware there's lots I don't know

Tenants cant amend direct debit amounts as they are controlled by the company. They may be getting confused with Standing Orders that are controlled by the account holder

Thanks, I thought that too!

Bumping for the Afternoon Lot

Totally shameless bump

Do you know anything about the family member's deposit situation? The rules (eg the number of weeks' deposit) changed in the summer so that may have muddied the waters.

Thanks senua. I've looked at the tenancy agreement signed in 2012 and it just states a weeks rent in advance, no mention of any deposit.

The change in payment amount was effective from April however I'm going to have a good read through that link, thank you.

I don’t work for a housing association but in council housing, the housing association will be able to provide a rent statement from the start of the tenancy showing every rent amount going on and every payment your friend has made so there’s nothing they can hide.

Hi Kraggle. To be fair they have arranged to do that next week so we can look at all figs. I can't imagine they would do this if they weren't 100% they were correct.

It's the fact they are trying to pass a recent and gradual overpayment off as the "week in advance " which doesn't seem right.

Does the name of this housing association begin with an S

Helena only the new name I've given it But no.