Renting Flat

[jasmin26]

Sorry if this is the wrong section. My friend left her husband last year and moved in with her parents. No violence he is a womaniser. She doesn't work and signed to rent a flat in November. Her rent is paid by the council and also get council tax benefit. She hasn't moved in yet and shows no sign of doing so, keeps making all sorts of excuses.
Apart from the fact you and I are paying her rent etc, I worry that she will be in trouble if council found out.
What would be the likely outcome if they did ?

[Maydup]

Unfortunately I can't imagine she'll be in much trouble. The council don't have the resources to check that she's moved in, they'd only know if she tried to claim again at a different address or was found sub-letting the flat.

Maybe she'll think about moving in now that christmas is over. How about suggesting a weekend when the two of you could move some things in together?

[albaqwerty]

I don't know about any trouble she might be in if the council find out, but here, if I were to leave my home unoccupied for any length of time (3 months I believe) I must inform the council.
She is also depriving someone else from living there, but that's another issue.

Is she nervous about starting out on her own?

[murraymints]

If it's council flat and she doesn't move in then they could take it back for someone who needs it !

[jasmin26]

Great idea but I have tried on several occasions to do that. I told her I would help her redecorate once she had moved in but I am not sure why she is so reluctant to do it .

[jasmin26]

its not a council flat its a private one

[murraymints]

As long as she doesn't sub let or claim elsewhere then...nowt will happen !

[albaqwerty]

I don't think the landlord will be too fussed, he's getting paid rent.
I wonder about his insurance though, if, heaven forbid, a pipe bursts and isn't discovered for a few days and his insurance company believe than the property was being lived in and therefore looked after to some extent.

Does she ever intend to move in? The council are paying benefit and she is not taking it.

[jasmin26]

Alba. I don't think she does intend to move in ! She hasn't actually said it, just a gut feeling.

[Peter Pedant]

. Immediate suspension. Like return of post.
The landlord suddently stops getting rent with a letter just sayine we have stopped the rent now get it off your tenant...

the tenant will get a suspension letter sent to her empty flat and usually just shrugs her shoulders and says nothing allowing the arrears to mount

The Fren' then becomes liable for rent
and the landlord has to go around and collect rent from your fren'

pain in the +rse for the landlord -a s he can't evict without serving a notice here it would be for arrears - on the person there and she isnt !
He cant go in and empty the house without a court order (and he cant start proceedings without getting his hands on the tenant)

You wil not be surprised to hear that I have been there.
The landlord is under a duty to say that she is not in occupation
but wont as all it means is that he has to find the rent from and absentee.

[Peter Pedant]

The Councils are trigger - happy over suspensions
as it saves them money....
and so they dance around saying look look we are saving you money and so we can build our spanking new shiny offices at no extra cost for you !


and the tenant - if they are restored - has to write and appeal for the rent during the suspension period and it turns out that at least half the benefits tenants cant write...

[cassa333]

Do you think she is suufering from depression or something?

Her reluctance to move out of her parents house could be down to a fear of being, and having to cope, on her own?

[joko]

just leave her to it, she is not benefiting from the council paying her rent so there is no scam here.

she is just in no rush, and thats up to her - maybe she just wants to take her time - as someone said she may be depressed and the thought of moving may just sound like an massive effort - plus over xmas etc she will not have wanted to bother

she will move in her own time.

[jasmin26]

joko, I wasn't implying there was a scam going on. I am worried about her getting into bother for claiming for somewhere she isn't living.

[themas]

Peter

Just to be clear about it, Councils are only allowed to provide Housing Benefit for properties lived in by the tenant for whom the benefit is paid. So if they find out she is not living there (& they do carry out checks) they will undoubtedly (& quite correctly) stop the benefit.

They will also very probably tell her she has been overpaid the benefit for the period they paid it, & attempt to recover it from her. They may go as far as interviewing her under caution if they suspect that she may have committed a benefit offence. She is very unwise to just go on with this & not do anything about moving in.

[Peter Pedant]

Thanks Themas

I wasnt that unclear about it. but I am certainly clearer now...

altho as a consumer of all this:
all you get is opaque letters from the council
saying you are suspended.