Hello all.
I have been renting a house to a tenant for ten years. Her health has now deteriorated and she can no longer maintain the garden and is now massively overgrown. She physically pays the rent into my account but I am worried that as her health fails, this will also stop. The rent has only increased once by £25 and is probably now 50% under the current market value as she says she cannot afford to pay any more. She is on benefits and hasn’t worked since she lived there. What are my options should she go into long term hospital care and cannot physically return to the property?
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There is little point in you trying to get involved in the circumstances to be honest, because the agencies you contact, such as social services are unlikely to respond to you. You can only either evict her using s21 or increase the rent to market levels and wait for her to give notice, which she probably won’t do.
If the rent is 50% below market value it could well be below your LA Housing Allowance so if you increased it to the LA allowance she would get this amount awarded.
Look on your LA website and see what they rate is for the type of property you have.
Whether she would be able to deal with the benefits agency and the changes if she has health issues is another matter.
If benefits are paying her rent you could ask her to request that this is paid to you directly which would save her the hassle.
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Thank you for your great advice.
How easy is it to get the weekly housing allowance paid into my account directly?
The tenant is never helpful on the occasion I have raised the subject.
not that easy when the tenant does not agree . speak to the L/A
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Depends which benefits she is on but as Colin said it’s not easy if she’s not co-operative.
If she’s on UC the Housing element is lumped in with that.
You can request it paid to yourself under certain circumstances and you can apply online if you know her details and DOB.
Or if it’s still Housing Benefit she gets, which it may well be if she’s been on a while and not had a change of circumstance as Colin says contact the Housing Benefit section at the council and see what they suggest.
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You could ask her to set up a standing order to you as opposed to having a direct payment from the Benefits department but suppose she probably won’t be helpful on that score either. You might have to insist that it would suit you better.
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Thank you for your advice. I think I’m going to arrange a meeting with her. Regards, Paul.
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