Rent allowance review

Kanrussell

Hi there
I need a bit of advice
I have an 8 month old baby and split with the father of the child back in march. Things are acrimonious.
At the time I was receiving 217.80 maternity per week.
I was paying the bills, him the rent.
When he absconded I was left with a total of 1000€ income a month including c.a with rent of 900€ per month owing.
I went to the cwo and they approved me for rent allowance.
My landlord has been receiving the rent since the 1st of April paid directly to him weekly.
At the time the max rent for my area was 875,
My landlord still wanted the full 900 but agreed to say he was dropping it by the 25euro.
I have paid him 145€ direct debit on the first of each month.
I also was entitled to ra based on the reasons I had privately rented, not because I had been assessed for social housing.
A month later I applied for opfp
I was awarded and received the same 217.80€ once my maternity benefit stopped.
I was also at the time told that the father of my child had to pay maintenance and I had to apply to the courts and I had two weeks to prove that he was paying me maintenance.
I contacted him via his mother, mentioned court, he agreed to pay 100€ per calendar month rather than go through court. This started the first of May, visible on my account.
I dropped in a letter to my local social welfare like asked within the two weeks. A girl at the desk took it and told me she worked in the opfp department.
I continue living my life.
A couple of weeks ago I get a letter in the post to say I am being rent reviewed.
It asks for reference number of social housing, maintenance and letter to be signed by landlord etc
I do as they ask
However, I write that landlord insisted on rent being the same so I paid it so as to not to become homeless
This is the truth
Mention my maintenance presuming that he will have seen that on my file
Also explain that I did not know I needed to apply for social housing and got onto it straight away
All truths
On Friday gone I check my letter box and no rent receipt is there
It looks like my rent has been stopped
Also, I received a letter from the maintenance recovery department saying I had two weeks to prove I was seeking maintenance.
It looks like they never attached the letter to my file.
This is all very upsetting as I really don't know what to do. I am not in a position to pay for my rent. And emotionally I don't know how strong I am to have to go jump over various hurdles.
I'd appreciate any help you can provide.
Thanks.

The_Conductor

Moved from the Accommodation and Property Forum- hope the good folk here may be able to assist.

afedo

i hope someone can help. My rent 2 years was 600 euro per month when i had to leave work due to illness. I asked my lanlord would he reduce it, since i was loving there 3 years previous, he agreed. But when i went for rent allowance the limit was 450 a month, so the cwo gave me that limit for a few weeks, so i asked my landlord would he reduce it to that amount, which he agreed since i have been a very good tenant, but he wasnt over the moon, being down 150 euro a month. The moral of my story is my lease is up in 3 weeks and my landlord asked me was the limits changed. i said yes it is now 485 per month for a single person in cork. so he will be expecting more rent because of it. will i have problems with the rent department with this, or is the increase just for new applications for rent allowance? thank you in advance.

afedo

Can I just say your landlord is going to be in major trouble, as paying rent on the side is actually fraud. Sorry now to worry you but expect your landlord to be on your case. I suspect the social welfare are not going to take this very lightly. I wish you the best.

afedo

That comment was meant for kanrussell.

fussyonion

afedo wrote: »

Can I just say your landlord is going to be in major trouble, as paying rent on the side is actually fraud. Sorry now to worry you but expect your landlord to be on your case. I suspect the social welfare are not going to take this very lightly. I wish you the best.

If the CWO discovers the fraud, it's the tenant who'll be in trouble as they're the person receiving the allowance.
I'm sure the tenant is well aware that what they're doing is wrong but they're not alone.