Having worked since I was 16 yrs old and always paid tax, I find it highly frustrating that at the one point in my career when I am unable to work due to injury (I am a carpenter and have a broken arm), I have not been able to successfully claim the correct amount to cover my rent.

As a tenant in Glemsford I pay £95 per week rent. This figure is inclusive of my rent, bills and council tax. However I have been informed that the council will only cover £69 of this amount. Not only are the council unable to pay the full amount, they also pay four weeks in arrears. This as I'm sure you can understand, will not be acceptable for my landlord who is already missing rent since July 1 (when my injury was sustained).

I was told that this is just 'the system', but I would suggest that the system is unjust, and ineffective, as the majority of tenants have to pay for the month ahead, and the excuse of 'four weeks in arrears' would not wash well with the majority of landlords. I find the whole thing unacceptable!

I require £95 per week to cover my rent. This should have been backdated from 1/07/08, therefore the amount I was expecting to receive on 3/09/08 was £855. However I have been informed that the council is only prepared to pay £69 per week. Even so I would expect that £621 would enter my account on 3/09/08. As it is I have been told that the actual figure I will receive is £241, which means that I remain in debt to my landlord by the sum of £614 – a figure I think will be hard to cover by the income support I receive.

Even if the council is not prepared to pay the full amount for my rent, I find it unacceptable that they are not prepared to pay my rent up to date, particularly when the figure would not have become so high had the situation been resolved sooner, the fault for which I believe also lies with the council, as I have had to fill in form after form only to be met with yet another letter request, many of which I would deem unnecessary, and could have been dealt with much more effectively with one simple form right at the beginning of my claim.

Overall, I have found the way the council dealt with my claim unprofessionally and unjustly and I feel that certain processes need to be reviewed to ensure that the same mistakes are not made again, and that other individuals do not become homeless as the result of an ineffective system.

I would be interested to know if other individuals have experienced the same hardships.

So much attention is focused on benefit cheats, and not enough on the councils that make it impossible for honest individuals like me who genuinely require their help.

ANNOYED
Glemsford
(Name and address withheld)