Rent Allowance - possible abuse of system

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DeeFox

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I am trying to rent a three bed semi (on behalf of someone else) and I received a call today from a girl wanting to know if I would accept rent allowance. I asked her to tell me about herself and she said she was a single parent with one child and was on benefits. The house is advertised at €900 and so I asked her how much the rent allowance would cover and she said "around €750, but don't worry about that as I am going to sublet the other two rooms so you'll definetly get your rent every month". I said I wouldn't be happy with that arrangement and left it at that.
I've since been thinking that this would be really unfair if she did manage to find a landlord who didn't care what went on in the house as long as they got their money. A quick look on daft shows that a bedroom in a house would cost around €350 in this area. Is it really possible to abuse the system in this way? Rent allowance must be costing the State a fortune and it annoys me to think that someone could be making a profit from it.
 
Various forms of RA abuse is widespread as far as I can see - and am told.
 
Complainer said:
Has anyone reported these widespread abuses to the authorities?
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Based on the information given in the first post there is not enough information to report someone to the authorities - and I think that most cases I hear about casually are the same - I am told enough detail to ascertain there is an abuse but no names, addresses etc...so nothing that could be reported.

From the first post, the person in question probably moved onto the next landlord until she found someone who would agree to the scheme - and someone agreeing to it is quite possibly also in a position that they do not want any undue attention from revenue or are unregistered etc... So they wont be reporting her either.
 
truthseeker said:
Based on the information given in the first post there is not enough information to report someone to the authorities - and I think that most cases I hear about casually are the same - I am told enough detail to ascertain there is an abuse but no names, addresses etc...so nothing that could be reported.

From the first post, the person in question probably moved onto the next landlord until she found someone who would agree to the scheme - and someone agreeing to it is quite possibly also in a position that they do not want any undue attention from revenue or are unregistered etc... So they wont be reporting her either.
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What I'm really getting at is 'Is the abuse as widespread as these posts might have you believe'? If people have direct first-hand knowledge of abuse, they should report it. If they have 3rd-hand unreliable gossip, then perhaps they should be questioning the reliability of their sources.
 
It would be interesting to get the views of people on this site who are very familiar with the RS system (such as Gipimann). Personally, anecdotal evidence in my dealings with people suggest that, at the least, there is manipulation of the system by both tenants and landlords to allow RS be claimed (i.e. false rental amounts being declared so that they come under thresholds for awarding of RS). The advantges are obvious; the landlord is guarenteed his rent every week as the state is paying the bulk of it, the tenant does not have to pay rent above 13 euro per week from state benefits.
 
Complainer said:
What I'm really getting at is 'Is the abuse as widespread as these posts might have you believe'? If people have direct first-hand knowledge of abuse, they should report it. If they have 3rd-hand unreliable gossip, then perhaps they should be questioning the reliability of their sources.
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I spoke to a high profile labour td about a person that she had actually given reference to and on that basis we had provided her with rental accommodation. the girl was getting €750 per month and after awhile she stopped paying rent so was effectively keeping rent allowance for personal spending. Because we had to give her her statutory notice for termination of contract she basically received €2,250 from the state to spend on herself whilst also availing of free accommodation. The TD didn't want to know anything about it when told and I was reliably informed that this girl was subsequently re-housed and in receipt of payment again. No rumours just fact, people screw the system every day and the people in charge don't want to know about it.
 
I know someone who was renting his house to his partner and child. She gets loan parents allowance and rent relief as well as assistance from the health board and StVDP. He lives in the same house and is in well paid full time employment. I know they were reported about 18 months ago but so far nothing has happened. The person who reported them works with homeless people, they said that the above abuse in very common.
 
MrMan said:
I spoke to a high profile labour td about a person that she had actually given reference to and on that basis we had provided her with rental accommodation. the girl was getting €750 per month and after awhile she stopped paying rent so was effectively keeping rent allowance for personal spending. Because we had to give her her statutory notice for termination of contract she basically received €2,250 from the state to spend on herself whilst also availing of free accommodation. The TD didn't want to know anything about it when told and I was reliably informed that this girl was subsequently re-housed and in receipt of payment again. No rumours just fact, people screw the system every day and the people in charge don't want to know about it.
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My parents had a tenant who was getting rent allowance but the money was paid directly to them and not to the tenant
 
It used to be the case but the tenants rights were deemed to be infringed so they were sent the money. It's not the same in all constituencies and afaik you can write to ask for the money to be sent direct to landlord.
 
Welfarite said:
It would be interesting to get the views of people on this site who are very familiar with the RS system (such as Gipimann). Personally, anecdotal evidence in my dealings with people suggest that, at the least, there is manipulation of the system by both tenants and landlords to allow RS be claimed (i.e. false rental amounts being declared so that they come under thresholds for awarding of RS). The advantges are obvious; the landlord is guarenteed his rent every week as the state is paying the bulk of it, the tenant does not have to pay rent above 13 euro per week from state benefits.
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Anecdotal evidence from the Community Welfare Service also suggests some collusion between landlords and tenants, it's very difficult to prove.

The tenant does end up paying more than the minimum contribution however - the landlord charges the full rent, but the tenant receives rent supplement based on a lesser amount.

For example tenant renting at 150 euro per week, max rent limit 115, rent declared to HSE at 115. Tenant gets 97 euro Rent Supplement, and must pay 53 euro per week (out of weekly income of 204.30), rather than the minimum contribution of 18 euro.
 
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Can we first of all clarify what we are talking about here.

Rent allowance is a very old scheme limited to a small number of tenants affected by decontrol of rents - see http://www.welfare.ie/EN/Publications/SW58/Pages/2Whocanqualify.aspx

I suspend that many of the comments about 'rent allowance' on this thread actually relate to a different scheme - rent supplement - see http://www.welfare.ie/EN/Publications/SW58/Pages/2Whocanqualify.aspx

I don't see anything about references (from a TD or otherwise) being required for rent supplement, so I'm a bit confused by the posts from MrMan. Perhaps MrMan could clarify who the 'we' is in his posts, and what specific scheme he is referring to. Maybe then we could have a useful discussion...
 
When lettings are being done references are required usually from work and previous landlord, the girl in question had no work or landlord reference as she had been living in a council house previously before it burned down. The TD rand me to say that this woman and her child needed accommodation and they were fine upstanding people fallen on hard times etc etc. She was in receipt of rent allowance to the full sum of the monthly rent. i don't think the issue here is what the scheme is called, it is state money (our money) and is being constantly abused, that is the issue.
 
MrMan said:
i don't think the issue here is what the scheme is called, it is state money (our money) and is being constantly abused, that is the issue.
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I agree.
I am aware of a street beside my home where there are 22 properties, all of them social housing. I have a friend who lives on the street. She tells me that out of the 22 houses, 16 of them are screwing the system one way or another, either by working for cash and not declaring it, or (by far the most popular), girls who have the house based on the fact they are a single parent but have a boyfriend/partner living in the house with them full time (from the day they moved in) - so they also receive more per child from the state than they would if they declared the working partners income and pay less in rent to the council.
 
MrMan said:
When lettings are being done references are required usually from work and previous landlord, the girl in question had no work or landlord reference as she had been living in a council house previously before it burned down. The TD rand me to say that this woman and her child needed accommodation and they were fine upstanding people fallen on hard times etc etc. She was in receipt of rent allowance to the full sum of the monthly rent. i don't think the issue here is what the scheme is called, it is state money (our money) and is being constantly abused, that is the issue.
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I'm still very confused by your stories. Who is the 'we' in this story? Is it the HSE? or the local authority? or the landlord? Who requires the references?
 
Exaggeration of welfare abuse always makes me angry/defensive.

My sister is in receipt of rent supplement/allowance/whatever-you-call-it.

She suffers from a chronic mental illness that renders her unemloyable.
She looks normal, acts normal and is great company....but she doesn't have the concentration required to hold down a job.

When she declared to prospective landlords that she was in receipt of RA generally she didn't hear from them again. Unless of course they were renting out a flea-pit, complete with resident druggies/wino existing occupants. She lived in these flea-pits for a year or two, until there was a scary situation with one of the other tenants.(wino)

I convinced my hubby to let her become one of our tenants. We take a 30% hit on the rent, but she gets to live in a safe house with decent room-mates. The social welfare know that I am her landlady.

As for being a single mother trying to afford accommadation in Dublin within the RA guidelines...it is not possible.
 
truthseeker said:
I agree.
girls who have the house based on the fact they are a single parent but have a boyfriend/partner living in the house with them full time (from the day they moved in) - so they also receive more per child from the state than they would if they declared the working partners income and pay less in rent to the council.
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There has been a change in policy in the UK on cohabitating partners I believe. This was due to the fact that 'penalising' people who cohabit results in families splitting up and there is then a social cost to this. Cohabitating partners do not get any of the benefits of taxation that married people receive. Until this is changed the scenario you outlined is unlikely to change.
 
gipimann said:
For example tenant renting at 150 euro per week, max rent limit 115, rent declared to HSE at 115. Tenant gets 97 euro Rent Supplement, and must pay 53 euro per week (out of weekly income of 204.30), rather than the minimum contribution of 18 euro.
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I'm at a loss to understand how the tenant is benefitting here if they are paying 53 euro instead of 18. Is it something to do with what another poster said on another thread that people are not allowed to rent property that is in excess of the limits of the HSE?

Also what is the benefit to the landlord, (other than having the property rented) they have to register the tenancy with the PRTB including the rent amount and they have to declare the amount received to revenue so this would be very messy indeed, from a landlord's perspective.
 
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