# My tenant says her rent allowance has been stopped without notice. Rent not paid 9mo.



## pepeless (13 Jun 2011)

Hi
I let my house to a woman and her children claiming social welfare. I received her month's deposit and her month in advance. 

The tenant was in the house for five months and suddenly the welfare officer stopped payment without any reason or letter stating why the payment was stopped. 

I have been contacting the social welfare and they request for prove of ownership in which i have sent to them despite the fact that they already have the document on file. 

The payment was stopped in Oct 2010. 

After waiting for 3 months with no response, i reported the matter to my local TD office, her secretary called the officer and she told her they are still working on it. They acknowledge non payment of rents since oct 2010. I have not received rents for 9 months now. I have been paying the mortgage from savings. 

Presently i do not have any means of meeting my mortgage obligation again. The bank is on my neck now. What can i do? 

The house is in Blandchastown area of D15.

Can I evict her for non payment as she signed a year tenancy agreement?

I'm lost on what to do!!!!

Thanks


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## alexandra123 (13 Jun 2011)

So you are saying that for the last 9 months -you have received no payment and the family have still been living their ?

At the end of the day it is not your responsibility to contact the welfare. It is up to the tenant. The family have no right to be their if they are not getting rent allowance. 

The family owe you 9 months rent and it should be payable with immediate effect. You are going to have to evict the family.

You might need to give them notice depending on the terms and conditions set out in the contract. 

You need to stop thinking this is your mess to sort out, it is not. It is the person that is living their's mess. You seem to be doing their dirty work for them. You are the landlord - responsible for collecting the rent. You dont care who it comes from, once it comes your way. If it is not coming from the social welfare, then the tenant needs to cough up or move out.


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## merille (13 Jun 2011)

alexandra has right.

also u never know, why they really dont pay her rent allowance any more. she may say u everything u want to hear (that she didnt get any letter from social bout that or that she doesnt know whats wrong) 

maybe she has a man in the house working full time? maybe shes working? maybe she has savings and property somewhere and it all came out?


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## pepeless (13 Jun 2011)

Thank you for your advice. The woman has twins who are only 8 months old and a 2 year old boy. 
The rent supplement was being paid directly to my bank account. 
If i evict her now,would i be able to get the back payments?


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## niceoneted (13 Jun 2011)

You may not get back payments but you may get new tenants in who will pay rent. If you are holding out to just get the back payments I think I would be moving on from it. 
You need to look at this from a business perspective. You seem to be emotionally involved in some way as you mention 8month old twins and young boy. While that is awful you are in the middle of a business transaction and this has gone on too long.


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## alexandra123 (13 Jun 2011)

You could keep the family in their and hold out for the money. The department of social welfare are not paying it for a reason. We don't know that reason.  

Do you want to hold out for another few months and then at the end of it - hope you get paid ? What if the social welfare dont want to pay or wont pay ? You cannot force them.

How long will you hold out for ? 
If you hold out for another 3 months - thats a year of mortgage payments that you are down.  Example 1000*12 = > 12,000 euro. That is a ridiculous amount of money to let people away with. It is nearly half the average annual salary. I am not saying that this is what they owe, but this is normally the average for renting out a house.

You need to set yourself a cut off point and then evict. Everyone has family and friends that they can lean on. I feel that this family maybe not through any fault of their own - is leading you around the garden path and you are following.


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## ajapale (13 Jun 2011)

Moved from Welfare and state benefits to Property Investment & Landlord & tenants' rights .

Please post in the correct forum / sub forum.


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## beffers (13 Jun 2011)

Wow, 9 now months later, and you are only now wondering what you should be doing? Of course you can evict her. A year tenancy lease is only valid if she is actually paying her rent. Start the eviction process now and make sure you follow all the legal guidelines when doing so, such as serving notice etc. Being a landlord is a business not a charity. If you default on your mortgage, the bank to whom you owe the mortgage won't give 2 hoots about her 8 month old twins. Why should you? 
Have you spoken to your tenant about why the rent allowance has been stopped? What did she say? If she plays hard ball, tell her you will sue her in small claims court for the backlog of what she owes. If SW stopped her rent allowance, odds are she has income coming in from somewhere and you may get lucky.


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## gipimann (13 Jun 2011)

Rent Supplement isn't usually stopped without some notification - but that will be sent to the tenant, not to the landlord.   It's possible that the tenant knows why the Rent Supplement has been stopped and just hasn't shared that information with you as the landlord.


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## Alwyn (13 Jun 2011)

merille said:


> alexandra has right.
> 
> also u never know, why they really dont pay her rent allowance any more. she may say u everything u want to hear (that she didnt get any letter from social bout that or that she doesnt know whats wrong)
> 
> maybe she has a man in the house working full time? maybe shes working? maybe she has savings and property somewhere and it all came out?



Think you've hit the nail on the head.  I've come across three cases recently were tenants had property and also a man living in the house.  

OP, your tenant is obviously under investigation and is holding information back from you.


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## onlineprint (13 Jun 2011)

Its quite clear that the person renting this house has no intention of paying ANY rent. The CWO will not deal with you, the landlord but directly with the tenant. 9 months without any payment from anyone renting someone elses property would simply be evicted after several months for non payment.


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## pepeless (14 Jun 2011)

*Rent allowance stopped for 9 months without notice.*

I am very greatful for all the advice.

i am serving the tenant a quit notice tomorrow. 

The excuses they gave was that the woman was not leaving in the house which was not right. She was there to prove she lives in the house. 

could it be because she is from Poland? They asked her to fill in a new yellow form which she did they requested to see prove of ownership from the landlord ,and other document in which we gave them.

Our local TD secretary had called them and the reply was that they are working on it. She called them sometime in February 2011.
Is there any agency or ministry that can compel them to pay the back log ?

Thank you all


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## alexandra123 (14 Jun 2011)

Maybe she is claiming Social Welfare from another address even though she is living at your address ?

Because she is from Poland should not have an impact on her getting rent allowance once all the required documentation was in order. 

If I was the tenant - I would be ringing them every day to get it sorted, or I would be in the office every day seeing the manager until my case was closed. It seems very laxed from the tenant that she last contacted them in February. It shows people how much of a priority it was for her to get it fixed. 

I dont think you can claim this back as the tenants allowance was stopped. Do they backdate rent allowance if they made a mistake or do they start from scratch ?

You would need to ring the Welfare and ask them to send out the terms and conditions of rent allowance and what happens when cancellation occurs. I think payment is between the social welfare and the tenant, not the landlord and the social welfare. You also need to look at this from an agreement point of view. You set out a contract with the tenant and yourself, not the social welfare and yourself.

I know a landlord who had a tenant on rent allowance. The tenant cashed in the last rent allowance cheque before she moved out. The landlord contacted the social welfare claiming that they did not get the money - the social welfare were not interested and the landlord lost out on that months rent.


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## AlbacoreA (15 Jun 2011)

pepeless said:


> ...
> I'm lost on what to do!!!!
> ...



Why? Its all on the PRTB website. 
[broken link removed]

The only person you deal with is the tenant. You shouldn't be contacting anyone else. Its none of your business what the HSE or DSP do. The tenant has no incentive to do anything while you faff about. Your actually the reason they aren't doing anything. Theres only one thing that matters. Is the rent paid per the contact/lease. if not, issue proper notice, to terminate then termination. Follow the procedure. Legally, its not started till you do it properly. Any sob story about kids or mortgages simply isn't relevant.


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## Bronte (15 Jun 2011)

You're not going to get any back money, where do you think that will come from?  If the tenant has been allowed to stay without paying rent why would she bother to sort out her affairs with social welfare?  

The issue is between you and the tenant, not between you and the social welfare/HSE.  And now you've got a TD working on your business affairs.  

If you wish to serve her notice, then look up the PRTB guidelines and make sure you do it properly.  Notice does not however necessarily mean the tenant will go, and if she decides to stay it will be an even worse mess.  If you evict her illegally the PRTB wil be down on you like a ton of bricks, the same does not apply vice versa as in the PRTB will be of no help to you in evicting your tenant.  You have to figure out which is the cheaper route.


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## Alwyn (15 Jun 2011)

alexandra123 said:


> I know a landlord who had a tenant on rent allowance. The tenant cashed in the last rent allowance cheque before she moved out. The landlord contacted the social welfare claiming that they did not get the money - the social welfare were not interested and the landlord lost out on that months rent.



I've heard similar stories too.  It baffles me why the cheque's are not sent directly to the landlords.


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## Hans (15 Jun 2011)

I get them sent direct to me - no problem - it's the only way I'd agree to these tenants. You should have been more proactive with this from week one. If they have been paying tenant I'm afraid you will be looking at a loss.


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