No DSS!

robfosters said:
If I am ever reliant on social housing, it would devastate me to have to move from the area I grew up in and live now. Anyway, I don’t think I’d have to. It’s likely my medical conditions would make me a priority.
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In all honesty though, why would it matter?

As long as you're placed in housing that's suitable for your medical conditions, and being within reasonable distance of any medical type facilities that you require use of (i don't know of your personal circumstances).

I appreciate people get attached to areas, and unfamiliar areas can be worrying, but as long as your personal/medical needs are met, it shouldn't make any difference where in the country you live.
 
Semple said:
In all honesty though, why would it matter?

As long as you're placed in housing that's suitable for your medical conditions, and being within reasonable distance of any medical type facilities that you require use of (i don't know of your personal circumstances).

I appreciate people get attached to areas, and unfamiliar areas can be worrying, but as long as your personal/medical needs are met, it shouldn't make any difference where in the country you live.
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I have to go to a specialist cardiac hospital in central London every few weeks, so I’d ideally be able stay within an hours travel of the hospital. I’m currently 45 minutes away.
 
robfosters said:
If I am ever reliant on social housing, it would devastate me to have to move from the area I grew up in and live now. Anyway, I don’t think I’d have to. It’s likely my medical conditions would make me a priority.
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Well you're hardly in prime central London if your location is Welling.
 
robfosters said:
I have to go to a specialist cardiac hospital in central London every few weeks, so I’d ideally be able stay within an hours travel of the hospital. I’m currently 45 minutes away.
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That's fair enough, although what would happen if that specialist treatment moved? or if there were hospitals outside of London that had better/more advanced treatment for you?
 
robfosters said:
Thankfully, that’s true. The ripple effect though may hit us eventually.
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Well if anything making more efficient use of housing resources ought to benefit someone in your position. My whole point wasn't move people all the way from London to say Newcastle but rather manage housing within London as a whole rather than have each individual borough responsible for it. Thus selling off a lot of the prime central London properties and building more homes further out would be a good start, revoking the right to buy so that those greater number of new homes remain in local authority hands would be a good thing too and lastly allocating (and re-allocating) based on need.
 
dowie said:
Well if anything making more efficient use of housing resources ought to benefit someone in your position. My whole point wasn't move people all the way from London to say Newcastle but rather manage housing within London as a whole rather than have each individual borough responsible for it. Thus selling off a lot of the prime central London properties and building more homes further out would be a good start, revoking the right to buy so that those greater number of new homes remain in local authority hands would be a good thing too and lastly allocating (and re-allocating) based on need.
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Lol, funny you say Newcastle as that’s where I’ll eventually have my heart transplant. Still wouldn’t want to live there though as all my family including my elderly father are down here.
 
Semple said:
That's fair enough, although what would happen if that specialist treatment moved? or if there were hospitals outside of London that had better/more advanced treatment for you?
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I guess I’d have to cross that bridge when I came to it. Although, it’s barts hospital. I can’t see them moving in my lifetime.
 
When Paola got really bad last year Occupational health came in and we had many options but the one they pushed was for us to sell our house and get a council bungalow my wife was getting to the point where even with a stair lift she couldn't safely go upstairs, before we moved to the house we are in now we were 15 years as a council tenant in a medical assist bungalow and 4 years as a private tenant, both on benefits and even our private landlord was sad to see us go.

I think it is the few bad eggs who are scum no matter if they worked or were on benefits, the ones that game the system and destroy it for people like myself.

In the end we couldn't get a council bungalow that would be big enough for her medical needs (home dialysis takes up a lot of space and storage) we decided to stay in our own home and just adapt, turned the lounge into a bedroom and bought a camping toilet for downstairs use.
 
Seeing this thread has got me thinking. I'm in the process of looking for a new tenant soon after my current tenant gave me notice three weeks ago. I dont want to instruct the letting agent to say 'no dss' as some 'dss' people are genuine & claim for health disability reasons. I will probably get a working tenant mainly because of where the property is. All I care about is that the tenant pays the rent on time, that they respect my property & contents & Anti-social behaviour isn't their hobby.
 
Grimley said:
Seeing this thread has got me thinking. I'm in the process of looking for a new tenant soon after my current tenant gave me notice three weeks ago. I dont want to instruct the letting agent to say 'no dss' as some 'dss' people are genuine & claim for health disability reasons. I will probably get a working tenant mainly because of where the property is. All I care about is that the tenant pays the rent on time, that they respect my property & contents & Anti-social behaviour isn't their hobby.
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Can’t you be specific and say you’ll accept people on housing benefit who are also on a disability benefit?
 
Good. Had some in the block here a year or two ago bloody nightmare treated the place like a doss house used to toss stuff out the window (they were 4 floors up) have slanging matches then there was a falling out with one of them and some fat woman who spent the entire afternoon outside on the pavement yelling up at the window and having a argument with them upstairs out of the window. When the same thing happened at 3.am that was it everyone had had enough by this point and I think they were kicked out.

For all you bleeding heart liberal types ask yourself this: would *you* want them living next door to you? Or is it fine to get on your high horse about just so long as its someplace else far, far away from where you live?
 
I make a habit of replying to dodgy letting agents asking what No DSS means, half the time they don't even no what the three letters stand for.
 
One of my tenant's has gone onto the DSS. Her husband was done for some sort of tax fraud and I'm now £900 out of pocket and she is trying really hard to get the money. Her mum paid one month she has now got a job and is waiting on the DSS to sort things out. A few months ago I was sat her house and she sat their in tears begging me not to kick her out. I must be soft.

I got this from her today

Afternoon,

I have been updated by the housing benefit. There is money waiting to be paid but they have sanctioned it. I started a new job last Tuesday at Harvey’s furniture store. Because of my new job they have sanctioned it until I can give them the information they need from my work. I hope you will bare with me on this. I have spoken to them again this morning and they have assured me that they will sort me out as quickly as possible. I don’t get my first pay until the end of December so my rent will be in on the last day of each month. I can assure you once this is sorted out it will never ever happen again. I’m embarrassed about this. I’m so sorry. As soon as the money is paid into my bank I will immediately transfer it all to you. I just don’t know when that will be. Again I’m very sorry about this.

I believe her, it could go wrong and I could end up thousands out of pocket and having to go to court to kick her out with the possibility that I never see the money.

What would you do?
 
wnb said:
One of my tenant's has gone onto the DSS. Her husband was done for some sort of tax fraud and I'm now £900 out of pocket and she is trying really hard to get the money. Her mum paid one month she has now got a job and is waiting on the DSS to sort things out. A few months ago I was sat her house and she sat their in tears begging me not to kick her out. I must be soft.

I got this from her today

Afternoon,

I have been updated by the housing benefit. There is money waiting to be paid but they have sanctioned it. I started a new job last Tuesday at Harvey’s furniture store. Because of my new job they have sanctioned it until I can give them the information they need from my work. I hope you will bare with me on this. I have spoken to them again this morning and they have assured me that they will sort me out as quickly as possible. I don’t get my first pay until the end of December so my rent will be in on the last day of each month. I can assure you once this is sorted out it will never ever happen again. I’m embarrassed about this. I’m so sorry. As soon as the money is paid into my bank I will immediately transfer it all to you. I just don’t know when that will be. Again I’m very sorry about this.

I believe her, it could go wrong and I could end up thousands out of pocket and having to go to court to kick her out with the possibility that I never see the money.

What would you do?
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Doesn't get paid until the end of December? I'm not 100% sure but I'm certain that is BS. Harvey's either pay every 4 weeks (like most retailers) or monthly therefore there will be a pay period well before end of December.

And she says the housing benefit has been sanctioned until they have proof she is working? A copy of her signed contract which she will have got on or before her first day of work.

Sounds like she wants some spending monies before she starts paying you back. :D
 
wnb said:
One of my tenant's has gone onto the DSS. Her husband was done for some sort of tax fraud and I'm now £900 out of pocket and she is trying really hard to get the money. Her mum paid one month she has now got a job and is waiting on the DSS to sort things out. A few months ago I was sat her house and she sat their in tears begging me not to kick her out. I must be soft.

I got this from her today

Afternoon,

I have been updated by the housing benefit. There is money waiting to be paid but they have sanctioned it. I started a new job last Tuesday at Harvey’s furniture store. Because of my new job they have sanctioned it until I can give them the information they need from my work. I hope you will bare with me on this. I have spoken to them again this morning and they have assured me that they will sort me out as quickly as possible. I don’t get my first pay until the end of December so my rent will be in on the last day of each month. I can assure you once this is sorted out it will never ever happen again. I’m embarrassed about this. I’m so sorry. As soon as the money is paid into my bank I will immediately transfer it all to you. I just don’t know when that will be. Again I’m very sorry about this.

I believe her, it could go wrong and I could end up thousands out of pocket and having to go to court to kick her out with the possibility that I never see the money.

What would you do?
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Honestly, she sounds genuine. The humanitarian in me would trust her. I certainly wouldn’t go kicking her out.
 
I'd give her a chance to be honest as I've seen my own relatives screwed over by DWP. Use your own judgement. It's usually obvious when they are likely to take liberties.

Not all benefit claimants are scum and sometimes they struggle despite their best efforts. We are all prone to a bit of bad luck but yeah, don't be taken advantage of.
 
First tennant decided to stop paying her rent (payed via dss) a long and expensive court process to evict her and then have to deal with the suppliers/council that she also forgot to pay.

Second DSS Tennant. Perfect for 14 months. Again stopped paying and refused to leave the property.

Rinse and repeat.

Third tenant. A little bit too perfect until the house caught alight. They had been fiddling with the electric supply to grow their plants in the loft (why choose the loft when you have a nice garden? ;)) Currently property is inhabitable but the insurance company are very good at paying the lost rent in time and whilst they are taking their time doing the repair works I’m quite happy for them to stay as long as they like :)
 
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