Here are just a few of the comments users have sent us about how the standard letters have helped them
'With your advice I helped a tenant challenge a refusal to back date her claim. We were successful and HB paid an extra £217.70. Your help is as always appreciated and this was a weight of this young lady’s mind.'
‘I used your standard letter named “TENANT’S APPEAL AGAINST OVERPAYMENT WHERE CLAIMANT WAS PARTNER” as one of our tenants, an elderly housebound lady, was being asked to pay an overpayment of £1332.20 that related to her late husbands’ claim for Housing Benefit. By using your letter I successfully argued that this overpayment should not be recovered from her. As a result the overpayment was written off.’
‘Using a combination of the application for DHP, appeal against an overpayment, backdate request and direct deductions, I secured a total of £4297.22 and established a relationship with the tenant that has made her tenancy sustainable. She is happy to approach me with problems getting/keeping her benefits in payment.
Full HB and direct arrears deductions are now in place and eviction action has been avoided. The tenant has 4 children and a grandchild at home so this has been a huge victory.’
‘I have used your standard better to request a backdate for a new tenant who had savings in a personal injury trust fund, his support provider for the last few years and the one before that did not realise (his savings were considerably over £16K when he became a tenant and were still over when we took over his tenancy) that he could claim HB. I asked him to submit the backdate letter provided by me from your website for 6 months giving good reasons and this is turn was accepted and he was awarded over £5K.’
‘I drafted a final appeal letter for Mr W, incorporating some of the comments you made about it being practically impossible to dispose of ½ a house & therefore requesting our LA to consider Mr W’s share of the property as having a Nil value. Mr W went a step further by contacting 3 local estate agents to discuss how they would go about selling his share in the property, but none of the estate agents contacted would take the listing on while Mrs W was unwilling to sell. I’m pleased to inform you that the LA has now decided to award Housing Benefit & Council Tax Benefit.’
‘The letter I used was the “Request for HB to be paid whilst JSA was sanctioned”. This resulted in a payment of £151.26’
‘hbnotes helped me with one of my tenancies, as my lady is Polish and did not realise she could now claim HB when not working. As I had read on your HB notes that the rules had changed from April I advised her to make a backdating claim which has been successful and she will receive £1060 which she would not otherwise have received.’
‘I used a standard letter to help one of our tenants who'd husband had left her when the HB Office were refusing to award any HB unless we transferred the tenancy into her sole name.’
‘I used your nil income letter to challenge a £552.72 overpayment and won. The overpayment was reduced to nil.’