Leaseholders have been left to pay to remediate the institutional failures left by Developers and anyone involved in approving as safe the use of flammable material. We are VICTIMS and should not foot the bill. Robert Jenrick has left all Leaseholders living in properties below 4 storey in the dark and more worried than ever. We risk bankruptcy, homelessness, chronic stress and in the worst cases suicide as some are feeling unable to cope.

Paying benefits to landlords and letting agencies can lead to evictions, certainly right now during the pandemic. It also weakens the tenants' positions in other ways. 1. Such tenants lose the overview of how much gets paid when and to whom because they have no access to that information. This means that tenants can be getting into rent arrears without being aware of it. Mistakes are sometimes made without tenants having any knowledge of them. 2. A great deal of postal mail is currently going missing because of the pandemic and many council offices and other offices are closed. Some offices have been closed since the start of the first national lockdown in March 2020. This means that the communication between benefit-paying agencies and tenants can go awry without tenants being aware of it and this can even result in benefits having been cut without tenants being aware. 3. In practice, such tenants have to rely on their landlords and letting agents to learn about any rent arrears and the size of such rent arrears and often will have to take the landlords and letting agencies’ word for it. That is certainly often the case right now, with the pandemic hampering so many councils and other organisations. Tenants and letting agencies often only let their tenants know that there is a problem after arrears have accrued substantially as this makes it much easier to evict tenants and it makes it possible to overcome coronavirus eviction regulations. (Some landlords even have their own "guy at the council".) 4. Each of these three aforementioned points can lead to eviction notices and eviction proceedings. It is currently much harder for tenants to counter the threat of eviction, because of the pandemic. Even if the tenant is successful and manages to stop an eviction, it takes away resources from various parties including the courts. It is stressful and time-consuming for most tenants. Stress lowers disease resistance. 5. When benefit payments go to landlords and letting agents instead of to tenants, this weakens the tenants’ financial standing as the banks do not see these payments coming in to the tenants' bank accounts, which classifies tenants in a lower income bracket. This can mean that certain options are not available to tenants. It can lead to higher and additional expenses for these tenants as well as to extra paperwork. 6. Not letting tenants handle their own payments weakens their financial skills. 7. Not allowing people with lower incomes to receive their own benefits and pay their own rents is a form of socio-economic discrimination. If there are budgeting concerns, then it would be better to put such tenants in touch with budgeting consultants or pair them up with peers or others who can support such tenants if needed. All of the above applies equally to housing benefits paid by councils or the DWP and portions of Universal Credit paid by the DWP. I was evicted in 2010 when I was 50 and I became homeless back then, briefly. I was unaware at the time that my housing benefits were not going to my landlady. I found out a few years later, when I managed to repay my landlady in full. (The latter had no effect at all on my credit score, in spite of having gotten a statement from the court.) At my current address, a great deal of my postal mail goes missing or is delayed by up to as much as 12 months, sometimes. Last year (2020), one letter from the council took 5 months to arrive and many packages went missing. I don't know how many letters I have not received, but I recently found out about several important letters from the council that I never got last year. A letter from another council from which I had requested old council tax information went missing as well. I am not the only one whose mail has gone missing since the start of the pandemic; the BBC has reported on this several times, such as here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55652461 And we all wrestle with the uncertainty that the lockdown brings with regard to what "the new normal" is. We don't know what to expect of various services, we often can't enquire in person as the offices are closed and many of us are probably heeding the request not to burden government agencies too much with our questions right now. Renewing my driving licence also took four, five months in 2020, after all, because of Covid. This pandemic is affecting us all in many ways, more than most of us are aware of. Housing benefits should always go to tenants so that when something goes wrong, tenants will be able to notice it right away.

**Update 11 Feb 2020 - Robert Jenrick yesterday announced an extra £3.5 billion in funding to fix cladding in high-rise buildings, but this does not go nearly far enough. In a move that has angered many, no funding was announced for fixing other fire safety defects or for buildings under 18m. An estimated 70% of buildings with unsafe cladding also have other fire safety defects, meaning flat owners in high-rise buildings will still have to pay to fix these with average bills of £25,000. Only long-term loans were offered for buildings under 18m leaving them to pay all costs. This will saddle these flats with debts for decades, make them unsellable and could push flat owners into negative equity.** Up to 11 million flat owners in the UK are now potentially living in unsafe buildings. Since the fire at Grenfell in June 2017 in which 72 people lost their lives, it has become clear thousands of buildings across the UK are fire traps, due to flammable cladding and other serious fire safety defects. These buildings should never have been built like this. A culture of corner cutting from the construction industry, alongside regulatory failure are to blame. Flat owners are facing unimaginable bills in the tens of thousands of pounds - some over £100,000 each - to fix unsafe buildings, despite them not being at fault. Flat owners live in constant fear of fires in their buildings. Their homes are so dangerous many require 24/7 fire patrols known as “waking watch”. These can cost up to £15,000 a week, alongside flat owners seeing astronomical insurance hikes. Until their buildings are fixed, they cannot sell or remortgage. Hayley, a first-time buyer, bought her flat in Leeds at 27. At 28 she went bankrupt due to the crisis. Hayley will not be the only one to go bankrupt - thousands, if not millions, more will go bankrupt too. All this is seriously impacting mental health. “I struggle each day to keep myself alive due to the financial worries of ending up homeless and bankrupt.” [UK Cladding Action Group, Mental Health Survey] The government must protect all flat owners from the costs of fixing unsafe buildings, no matter the height of those buildings. The problems now stretch well beyond cladding to other defects like missing fire breaks and flammable insulation. The vast majority of flat owners are leaseholders, meaning they do not own their buildings, but just lease them. Archaic laws mean all costs can be passed onto them by the building owner. The government must make the money available upfront so buildings can be made safe quickly, and then work to recoup the money from those who were responsible. Millions of other flat owners cannot move home as they await surveys to know if their building is safe, seriously affecting the housing market. 86% of surveys to date have shown work is needed as buildings are unsafe - at cost to flat owners Funding to date has been entirely inadequate, with just a fraction of the estimated £15 billion needed having been made available. Flat owners must not be forced to pay, both financially and mentally, for others’ mistakes.

At a time when many people are facing financial difficulties, it makes house purchase much more attainable, and keeps the housing market buoyant.

There is 1000s of people in the same boat as me. They refuse to maintain there propertys all over London.

To many people are struggling with housing and the problems are people over 20s cant get a guarantor. Which is will help the MPs to understand the problems that we all are facing.

It's important because people are being turned away from better living conditions, the problem of overcrowding and domestic abusive relationships they are unable to have a stable home do to this rule

60 families will lose their homes with nowhere to go apart from temporary accommodation miles away

They do not understand the root causes of homelessness, homeless people are often looked down upon as being "lazy" and "not looking for a job" but being homeless is what contributes to the unemployment rather than the other way round. To have a job, you need a bank account, to have a bank account you often need an address. This means that homeless people are stuck in a cycle of unemployment.

After finally allowing benefit recipients to rent on the private market its time the government matched the figures up. The amounts being asked for by landlords doesn't match the amounts being given by lha rates, their short by about £150 for self contained properties. This petition is to ask them to raise the rates so people can actually make use of the new legislation which at last allows the use of benefits to be used to pay rent privately, please sign below and help make this reality!

2020 demonstrated more than ever the importance of a safe and comfortable home. But too many people suffer in poor quality, even dangerous, houses. And with the government making it easier to build homes without proper local scrutiny, we could be looking at thousands of “slums of the future”. Liverpool’s local leaders are currently figuring out an ambitious long-term plan for housing right across the region. These decisions will play a huge role in the quality of housing for years to come - and could have a massive influence on the rest of the country too! That’s why we - the people of Liverpool and its surrounding areas - are demanding that any new housing meets eleven basic principles: 1. Be safe in relation to the risk of fire. 2. Have adequate space. 3. Have access to natural light. 4. Must meet people’s lifetime needs and be adaptable. 5. Be accessible and located in accessible environments. 6. Prioritise walkable services and sustainable transport. 7. Be built in line with the Climate Change Act 2008. 8. Have access to green space and play areas that are accessible to all. 9. Be resilient to a changing climate. 10. Be secure and meet design standards which reduce and prevent crime. 11. Meet standards to eradicate noise pollution. The eleven principles have been developed by the TCPA (Town and Country Planning Association) as part of their Healthy Homes Campaign. You can read more about them here: https://www.tcpa.org.uk/healthy-homes-act

There are a number of health, safety and welfare concerns about access and egress on the estate which is becoming more of an issue by the day due to increasing use since the opening of the Keswick to Threlkeld railway path. A number of pedestrian paths, steps and access routes are in a poor state of repair and are hazardous . The step and walkway access to the site on both sides is very hazardous and there is an increased risk of slips, trips or falls. The steps are extremely large, buckled, warped and rotting away. The wooden handrail alongside the step access to the road by the leisure centre is rotting away and loose. At the base of the steps a hole has appeared in the tarmac. The path running adjacent to the leisure centre at the back of the houses has completely collapsed at the end nearest the Keswick Bridge time share. The steps on the central mound on the estate are also collapsing and the paths are made from loose hardcore rubble posing a trip hazard. The increase in footfall through and around the estate is degenerating the paths further. The estate is home to a range of different people. The poor state of repair to the access and egress route on the estate is particularly challenging for those families with young children, elderly residents and disabled residents. It is important that the access and egress route are repaired and improved without delay to prevent avoidable accident or injury.