Terms & Conditions

[Anonymous]

Hello

Is there anyone left in the office rather than at conference, if so, I need your help.

We have recently made a very small mistake!! and instead of paying the Landlord as requested, we have paid the tenant. The Landlord is now creating merry hell because the tenant will not pay her.

I know that we have the choice of who to pay, and that we wont repay the same amount to the landlord, but my manager seems to think that there may have been some caselaw on this.

Any help would be appreciated before I send my response to the Landlord

Thanks

[Bobkirkpatrick]

If I were you I’d pay compensation to the landlord equal to the payment.

As you’ve admitted it was a mistake, rather than a deliberate decision to pay the tenant, then I think you are duty bound to recompense the landlord. Failure to pay the landlord was maladministration which has clearly caused injustice. There are three or four Local Government Ombudsman reports in which local authorities were told to pay compensation equal to the “lost” HB in similar cases – and, indeed, I have just had an Ombudsman recommendation that compensation totalling £4,384 for a cheque that was mistakenly sent to a tenant (who cashed it, spent it and then disappeared) instead of the Trust accepted by the local authority concerned.

[j parkin]

Had a similar case in the recent past where we visited the tenant, asked what had happened to the money and explained that in spending it she had put her tenancy at risk (landlord was talking about eviction etc).

When she understood the gravity of the situation we ‘offered’ to pay the landlord the money they should have received, and said that she could pay the money she had spent back to us gradually (interest free of course).

Result.

Landlord – happier.
Tenant – still has a home.
LA – duplicate payment but getting it back

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your responses and advice. Still not made a final decision on this, but now have several options to consider!! 😀

[markp]

Like Jparkin, had a similar case and followed exactly that principle – tenant was agreeable to it and it was treated as a duplicate payment OP.

Do I know what I'm doing? The jury's out on that........................

[Author]

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