Rent allowance not accepted & moving advice

Jester_Himself

im not blaming the landlords although in saying that there are a lot of landlords who are not showing the tax man what they earn and dont register with prtb,.. So no im not putting the blame on landlords.. and i hope this never happens to you.

Gatling

rupert999 wrote: »

hope im not being nusisene again but what are their full titles? (RAS/ASH)

Ras is a long term let scheme run by local county council's where they lease a property long term anything from 4 years -10 years depending on the landlord ,

From your other thread you might find this scheme useful,

Here's some info below ,

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/local_authority_and_social_housing/rental_accommodation_scheme.html

Eric Cartman

Jester_Himself wrote: »

Myself and my wife are homeless. i sleep on a duvet in a utility room in my fathers house and my 7 month pregnant wife is sharing a single bed with our 3 year old daughter in her mothers. My assistance dog is in a kennels and has to be retrained,He has licked his 3 paws down to the bone (nearly to the bone). i am on disability allowance as i suffer bipolar and tourettes and because we are scattered in 3 places it costs a lot more. Nowhere accepts rent allowance and when they do they dont pick us. we are ideal tenants and have many referances. we were forced to move from last house as landlord sold house because he didnt want to replace our daughters mattress. It was covered in mould and as where her clothes. The window in her room was falling out of the frame. He has been in papers before for being a slum lord but still goes renting many properties. We the ideal tenant are being punished because of greed. We have been homeless the last 6 months and its near impossible to look on the brightside.Nobody cares, people will say such a shame but no one cares.
I am taking jacob (dog) out of kennels today as its hard for me but my daughter wakes up crying looking for him wondering why he isnt there. And because i have nowhere to put him i will be sleeping in a park because that way we are havlf back together again.

not to be bad here mate but you thought it was a good idea to have another child with your wife when you were living in an unfit household in what quite frankly sound like dangerous conditions to house a child. If your landlord sent you a 28 day notice of eviction then there were some fair odds she wasn't pregnant before you became homeless, or were notified of your impending homelessness. I would recommend looking into some stability before considering expanding your family further.

Jester_Himself wrote: »

And they already have rent allowance refusal being illegal in the 1st stage of getting passed in the Dail and Im aware that even if they made it legal that landlords will just up the price and we are looking for 1 2 and 3 bedroom houses.

Its a rushed bill being put forward by Paul Murphy and friends , if that passes I recommend you buy a euromillions ticket, you'd have better odds on that.

I feel bad for you and your family and your entire situation, as well as some of the other stories in this thread. But it seems to have just devolved into calling landlords greedy scumbags because they don't want to (understandably) take the risk on RA or RAS tenants. Landlords run this as a business, the returns are not the golden ticket people seem to think they are. Hopefully the council can help you, but given the majority of horror stories about RA tenants , you may have to move location, or out to somewhere that supply outstrips demand.

fussyonion

Jester_Himself wrote: »

im not blaming the landlords although in saying that there are a lot of landlords who are not showing the tax man what they earn and dont register with prtb,.. So no im not putting the blame on landlords.. and i hope this never happens to you.

I don't know why you've become all defensive; I was only pointing out the way it is.
And by the way, it HAS happened to me. I've been in your situation so I know exactly what's going on.

foggy_lad

fussyonion wrote: »

And what happened with RAS?

Ras doesn't work well in Dublin because of the high rents.

Jester_Himself wrote: »

Myself and my wife are homeless. i sleep on a duvet in a utility room in my fathers house and my 7 month pregnant wife is sharing a single bed with our 3 year old daughter in her mothers. My assistance dog is in a kennels and has to be retrained,He has licked his 3 paws down to the bone (nearly to the bone). i am on disability allowance as i suffer bipolar and tourettes and because we are scattered in 3 places it costs a lot more. Nowhere accepts rent allowance and when they do they dont pick us. we are ideal tenants and have many referances. we were forced to move from last house as landlord sold house because he didnt want to replace our daughters mattress. It was covered in mould and as where her clothes. The window in her room was falling out of the frame. He has been in papers before for being a slum lord but still goes renting many properties. We the ideal tenant are being punished because of greed. We have been homeless the last 6 months and its near impossible to look on the brightside.Nobody cares, people will say such a shame but no one cares.
I am taking jacob (dog) out of kennels today as its hard for me but my daughter wakes up crying looking for him wondering why he isnt there. And because i have nowhere to put him i will be sleeping in a park because that way we are havlf back together again.

Has your father not got a couch? Can you get the dog rehomed?

Jester_Himself wrote: »

They are also bringing it in to were all landlords have to have a licence to rentand if they dont have one then they cant let out their house.. I am aware that there are a lot of scum out there that just destroy properties. My mother is a landlord and a brutal one and she says she doesnt care who moves in as long as she gets rent and 4 years later she has only recieved 1 years rent because every tenant that lived there never paid rent and damaged the house and now she wont repair anything (And the reason i wont live there is because its not a nice area, we lived there once and had gangs of 20 outside every weekend always fighting and destroying the property. me and my wife and daughter had an evacuation plan because they even tried to break in a few times. In 6 months since we have been homeless we have had only 4 viewings. And we are not scroungers, i am on disability for bipolar,tourettes and bad nerves so im not good around people other than wife and daughter and some family members.. We could claim an extra 300 euro a week but i dont want to. i was given a bus pass and i still pay the fair because the way i see it is im given that money to get me around amongst other things so why have a pass (some people need the pass, but i dont) The point is i am not a scounge, My wife doesnt claim lone parents and we dont work into the hand and it just seems like those who do scrounge get a hell of a lot more respect....My cousin for example has 2 kids with one girl and one kid with another. They are claiming lone parents, he works 30 hours week and claims the dole, he is an alcoholic and a coke head and yet everyone in the family has a lot of respect for him weras i am the way i am because of my family and even 32 years later i still have no respect even though im probably one of the nicest people on the planet..i also do raffles for charities and get the prizes and tickets out of my money, I go to bakeries and buy so many muffins and hand them out all because i like to see people happy, A smile in the day is remembered for a week.

From what you say there are a lot of things you can do to help your situation but wont do them because you just dont want to.

Jester_Himself wrote: »

I save few euro a week and every 2 months i get a deal from a local baker and i do it that way. And we are afraid if we go to a social worker then the way our look is going our daughter will be taken of us. We are good parents but a series of unfortunate events took place. I do appreciate all responses to this

To be honest a lot of this story does not add up to anything sensible, You are not doing much to help your situation.

Sorry if this seems harsh but you need to sort out your situation and realise that your family comes first. your illnesses take second place as does the family pet/assistance dog. Beggars cant be choosers as the old saying goes and living in your mothers property would at least be a roof over your heads while ye look for something better!

Ray Palmer

Anybody got the links to the two legal things people are are saying?

New rule for RA to be taken by LL?

Licence needed to be a LL?

Can't see them making any difference so they seem pointless. I would say any licence will cost money and everybody should oppose that. Any increase to LL bottom line will eventually be passed on. If the government keep adding charges to LL they will just assume another is coming or an increase to existing one causing them always to charge the highest rate as soon as possible.

Anyway the issue is with the government not LLs, the government have the duty of care to provide social housing. Nama is not the solution either. Nobody wants to create poverty estates and that is what happens when you put people relying on state aids in one area.

I think it is hilarious people talk about going to TDs and councillors. They are the ones that took money rather than housing from developers. I am not talking bribes but ways out of building social housing. They should actually have money to build housing in council funds. If they don't what did they spend it on instead?

If you want to do something find out who did this in your area and publicise their failings.

djimi

RA paid directly to the landlords would make absolute sense; I have no idea why this is isnt the system already.

Licenses for landlords would not make a blind bit of difference; the industry needs proper regulation and efficient and effective enforcement of laws, for both tenants and landlords. Any time, money and effort needs to be put into making the PRTB an effective resource; that is the only thing that will improve renting in this country.

Ray Palmer

djimi wrote: »

RA paid directly to the landlords would make absolute sense; I have no idea why this is isnt the system already.

It doesn't solve the problem of RA dropping or if a tenants' payment get stopped.

I can tell you from experience if a tenant's RA is stopped for what ever reason they don't put their hands in to their pockets and pay. They claim no responsibility for the rent.

It is not the same as a person losing their job as they are very unlikely to have any savings to pay rent from. The only people I have had skip on rent have been RA tenants. Many have asked me to lie on forms for them (partner not living there on the form but I know they live there). I don't take it for many reasons it isn't how the payment gets to me that is the issue.

vitani

Jester_Himself wrote: »

Thats true, but if the rent is 950 which is what we are entitled to. And people who pay rent from their wages also have the risk of losing there job or just not paying it. There are a lot of bad tenants who do work for a living. I understand its a business not a charity but it can be both, They can say well these people really need a house and we need rent so lets give it to them.

If the RA is 950, why not claim the extra 300 a week that you're entitled to and use that to rent a place? Think of the 300 as an alternative rent allowance, if you want to feel like you're not scrounging. And if you're entitled to a bus pass, stop wasting money on bus fares.

Honestly, while I feel for your situation, as a parent, you sometimes have to swallow your pride and do what's best for your kids.

NickD

WhiteTiger wrote: »

our monthly income on sw is about 1400 per month so if rent is 900 we'd pay 140 euro & council would pay 760? Seems v high amount for council to pay. So would it be me contacting LL or the council?

Sorry, don't know if somebody said this earlier but RAS is 22% of your income, the term is 4 years and it is reviewed yearly, in case one of you get a job. It remains 22% of your income if you get a job/ social welfare gets cut.

fussyonion

NickD wrote: »

Sorry, don't know if somebody said this earlier but RAS is 22% of your income, the term is 4 years and it is reviewed yearly, in case one of you get a job. It remains 22% of your income if you get a job/ social welfare gets cut.

When I was offered the RAS, we were told it was 10% of our income and it didn't matter if we got jobs as it remained the same.

Was also told the Landlord could agree to either a five year term or a ten year one (the condition with the ten year one was that he hand over the home to the Council)

Was never informed about it being reviewed yearly either.
When did this all change?

NickD

fussyonion wrote: »

When I was offered the RAS, we were told it was 10% of our income and it didn't matter if we got jobs as it remained the same.

Was also told the Landlord could agree to either a five year term or a ten year one (the condition with the ten year one was that he hand over the home to the Council)

Was never informed about it being reviewed yearly either.
When did this all change?

Don't know when it changed. I moved into a RAS house on the 1st of March this year. We are paying 22%, hubby is in college, it will be reviewed every year and will always be 22% of whatever our household income is. The tenancy is for 4 years and if both tenants and LL are happy, it can be extended for another 4. We also had to pay 4 weeks rent deposit which apparently is also a new measure.