I am writing on behalf of a tenant on my estate.
About eight years ago, the housing association decided to ringfence 84 properties for market rent, at about double the social housing rent paid on the rest. The residents' association committee agreed, because it would bring in extra funding and more economically active families.

However, as the properties became vacant again, they were handed back to the local council's homelessness department and the properties allocated to vulnerable homeless families relying on housing benefit.

At the time of her offer of a tenancy, this tenant was told that the rent was standard for the estate and that it was her only offer. The situation was bearable while she was on housing benefit, but once she took up a reasonably well-paid job her wages were inadequate to pay for her rent. She applied for a transfer, but does not have the points required because she is in a three-bedroom house. She has been told that she cannot use the association's complaints procedure or the housing ombudsman because it is a rent matter. What can she do?

I would also like to know how these market rents are allocated.

To answer the last question first, if these properties are market rent, the association would look for the best way of letting them at the prevailing rent, which might be by advertising them or by offering them to the local council.

Turning to the tenant's position, being employed does not stop her from getting housing benefit, so I am not sure why she is worse off, although I agree that because of the steep tapers she may not be all that much better off.

I understand why it is frustrating for her to see neighbours with the same landlord paying much lower rents. But, unlike her, they went through a selection process before being allocated their housing. If she had applied for housing through the waiting list (an option that is still open to her), her housing needs would have been weighed against those of other applicants, and she might not have been housed at all.
John Bryant

Notice periods: be realistic
I am sorry to disagree with John Bryant ("Trapped by notice period", 11 April, page 35), but his suggestion for a private tenant on two months' notice wishing to move into social housing is really not on.

To suggest that the social landlord should be "flexible enough" to "leave an interval between the letting decision and the start of the tenancy" and that this does not give longer void periods because "quite often the social landlord will know how long before one of its properties is going to become vacant" is not living in the real world.

We rarely get any sort of notice these days. We usually know only on the day when keys get handed in – sometimes after that – that a void is definitely occurring. Until that date, with a dynamic waiting list and ever-changing demands from councils wanting to nominate the most current cases, there is no way one can make such an offer well in advance to a would-be tenant. Certainly trying to agree this two months beforehand is absolutely unrealistic.

We have one council partner who refuses to start the nominations process until after we have actually got the void in our hands because "they can't discharge their duty if a tenant can't actually sign up for a particular property on a particular day".

We also have experience of the private sector and what actually happens is the four-to six-week deposit (sometimes more) is used at the end of the tenancy to pay for the last few weeks. Full notice is very rarely given to private landlords either.

The best advice to the tenant in question would be to stop paying rent as soon as he is made an offer, to not give two months' notice, and to move into the social housing property straight away, so as not to lose it.

Source

Housing Today

Postscript

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