Joe

Housing support is a nightmare when you go from living alone to living with a partner, as when I moved in with my partner and had to join my claim with hers they left me with a excess rent charge of over £200 with my last HA and was told by UC it's not their problem but I feel they should help as UC is paid in arrears. I also contacted local council regarding this and they explained they don't help people with housing arrears. But these arrears were caused by UC. The only housing help I got that was really helpful was when I recently applied for a downsizing award and they gave me money to move and some money for carpets in my new home, but it was only enough to do the stairs, fortunately there was some carpets already here and we used old carpets from the last property just until we can afford new carpet for one of the rooms. All in all I have to say getting help is really hard and you have to jump through so many hoops, such as with the downsizing I had to get my old HA to apply on my behalf and we didn't get the payment in time so had to borrow from family and then pay it back when it arrived, also so much confusion as they said they would pay direct to people but then paid us. Very confusing all the time. Had to chase a lot also kept being told off by new landlord saying I should not have booked movers until they told us it would be ready, but they only told us 3 days before we moved. Such a nightmare really.