ouch local council

[James83]

not really benefits , but thought this was the best place.


since dad passing on just over 5 weeks ago , we have had great support from the local council and giving us the news we will not be evicted from the house , they will infact come to us to sign a joint tenancy.. ( so far no housing officer has been ) and we were told they would be in 2 weeks.

life insurance companies being a pain ( mainly one ) who said they are ready to pay up and will do so when they have the final paperwork they demand with bank staff name , worker number etc... well they have still not paid and they have had the paperwork for 2 weeks.

anyway i digress slightly.
Yesterday mum got an extremely thick envelope from local council , she opens it and out comes a squished book worth of Questions.
they want her sort code , account number , want to know ALL her money she gets and wants PROOF of ALL money . mum cant show proof as DWP have not sent any paperwork out to her they just told her across the phone what she is getting and they will pay her weekly to make things easier for her.
then she came across an other page and they demand to know what i get weekly / monthly so mum provides them with the information.

basically the only questions they did not ask were "" what do you spend the money on "" , how much are your bills a month , what bills do you have .

she is now worrying why they want all that personal information.

[poppett]

I would like to think it was a council tax and housing benefit application to ensure your mum doesdn`t pay any more rent than she needs to.....but nowadays you never can tell.xx

[James83]

well she filled it in and sent it back to the address stated on the front of the book.
time passed an nothing back from council ,,, we then get a phone call instructing us to walk up to the new community high school where the council offices are now based as its about the housing tenancy.
i went with mum as we were told it was a joint tenancy ,,, the woman said no this is just for 1 person to sign not joint you were told no such thing from anyone ... so we argue a bit that we were correct and she was wrong , she goes away comes back and said yes they decided to make it just under your mums name and not you .

then mum questioned why she was being charged full rate council tax and rent when she got free rent and very little council tax , the woman went away and came back and said she has to fill in a housing benefit form to see if she is entitled to anything.
she came back with the book and mum said i filled that in 2 weeks ago and sent it back in a brown envelope as it did not come with a pre paid one .
the woman left again and came back 6 mins later and said no you have not we have no record of it on our system do it again come back up and we will photocopy everything , and i will send it internal post .

so the first book she filled in has gone missing and the councils words were "" nothing to worry over , it has no personal information in it ""

umm it has bank sort code , account number , details of all benefits , name , address . sure absolutely NO personal information what so ever yeah right idiots lol.

[Jan McFarlane]

I have now started to take forms , information, proof into the council offices to get them photocopied and a receipt for them as I was fed up with them losing them.Although one time I did this and they still lost them,they wanted me to go back in with forms again. When I told them the onus was now on them to find the information I had already given them, they hung up the phone on me. Bloomin' council!! Make it up as they go on.

[bowlingbun]

James, I send everything important via Recorded Delivery or Special Delivery now. On one occasion the tax office tried to fine mum £100 for not sending her forms in one time, but when I gave them the SD reference they found the papers. It turned out the office had moved after they'd printed the forms with the return address on them, so mum had sent it to the old address, not the new one. Under certain circumstances, the council can allow mum extra money if she has extra "costs of disability". This means thinks like needing a chiropodist, a hairdresser if she can't wash her own hair, etc. It may seem intrusive, but that's the way it works I'm afraid.