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Landlord Portal News

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JoW
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Financial inclusion manager - Wythenshawe Community Housing

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Joined: 7 September 2012

So not only do the DWP want us to say that someone isn’t our tenant when they are, they also want us to say this is an untidy tenancy/absent joint tenant case when we will not necessarily know this is the case.

Sometimes it genuinely will be a 50% liability case - i.e joint tenants who are not a couple. We may not know the relationship of joint tenants.

Or it could be that one partner of a joint tenant couple has mistakenly made a UC claim as a single person. Again how would we know this.

In both cases if we reject and say this is an untidy tenancy/absent joint tenant case DWP may pay one joint tenant 100% of rent incorrectly.

 

[ Edited: 10 May 2021 at 03:28 pm by JoW ]
Timothy Seaside
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Housing services - Arun District Council

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I think (at least I hope) what they’re saying is that if we know it is an absent joint tenant case then we use this process (i.e. say they’re not our tenant and then say it’s an absent joint tenant case). Because we are trusted partners, they will take our word for it (although of course their own guidance says that they should take the tenant’s word for it).

If we don’t know then I think we just do the verification as usual - so we say they are our tenant and then we tick to say there’s somebody else on the tenancy and then say how many joint tenants there are in total. Then they’ll only get “their share” of the rent paid by UC unless they inform UC that there is an absent joint tenant.

To be fair to UC, these cases often cause(d) a little confusion with HB, although it should be easier for HB departments to spot because of the Council Tax information they hold.

JoW
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Financial inclusion manager - Wythenshawe Community Housing

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How can it be acceptable that landlords have to reject rent notifications and say someone isn’t our tenant when they clearly are?? They tenant then gets a message on their journal saying “WCHG have told us you are no longer their tenant”? It then tells them to report a change of cirrcumstances but won’t this just generate another verification for us which we then have to reject again??  It finishes by saying. “if you do not do this your housing payments could stop” which is really confusing for tenants and generates lots of calls to us and worry for them?

Also how quickly should rejecting on the portal result in the SRS email coming through? We aren’t getting any for cases we rejected over a week ago. Btw we have been getting SRS emailed through for claimants at addresses that are not ours where we have said on the portal rejection, “This is not one of our properties”. Why would DWP send an SRS through in these circs?

[ Edited: 24 May 2021 at 01:34 pm by JoW ]
Timothy Seaside
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Housing services - Arun District Council

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I don’t think it is acceptable. You tick to say it’s not your tenant and then you have to explain that it is your tenant, and then you have to confirm that everything you’ve told them is correct even though it’s not.

I always call tenants now to warn them before following the manual process (or, to use the technical term, “bodge”) - it saves a lot of distress and confusion and avoids the infinite verification loop.

Verification emails for the bodge appear to be on a strict timescale of whenever somebody can get around to it. I advise my tenants that a friendly journal message can sometimes help bring attention to the issue.

Other than accidentally saying the tenant is a sole tenant, I’m not sure what more we can do.

Ianb
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Macmillan benefits team, Citizens Advice Bristol

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“Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).”