For years, YOU'VE paid their £2,000-a-week rents. But the housing benefit gravy train's hit the buffersBy SUE REID
UPDATED: 00:12, 9 January 2012 At the kitchen table, two pretty girls giggle as they draw pictures with crayons. On the wall are posters listing their times-tables, while in the corner, the family’s tropical fish, Bubbles and Tiger, swim in a heated aquarium. But this happy domestic scene is threatened with upheaval because, in nine days’ time, the Rostant family - two parents, eight children and their pet fish - may be homeless. Until now, the family have been one of four families claiming the highest amount of housing benefit in the country.  Luxury living: The £1.2million home of the Saiedi family in Acton, London Their £2,000-a-week rent (more than £103,200 a year, given to the landlord) has been paid by taxpayers. But the money is to be stopped as the result of the Government’s crackdown, which began this week, on the long-running scandal of housing benefit abuse (which costs the working public a staggering £20billion a year). The change in the law means that low-income families such as the Rostants will no longer be given huge sums of housing benefit to live in expensive accommodation. In Central London, where they live, a strict cap of £400 a week for housing benefit pay-outs has been brought in. Andre Rostant said yesterday: ‘It’s a matter of when, not if, we are chucked out by the landlord because we can’t pay the rent.  State-funded: Toorpalai Saiedi's seven-strong family receives £750 a week from Ealing Council to cover their rent ‘There are 40 families at my children’s primary school who also expect to be evicted from their homes for the same reason.’ Many of these families, living in some of the wealthiest parts of London, have had their huge rents paid by the State for many years. But now, the welfare gravy train has halted. This week, when local councils were forced to release figures following a Freedom Of Information investigation, it was revealed that as well as the Rostants, there are two other families in London who have their rent of £2,000 a week paid by taxpayers. A fourth family - thought to live in a grand house in St John’s Wood - has rent of £2,050 a week (or £106,600 a year) picked up by the State. This is the biggest amount of housing benefit ever to be handed out. Tory MP Anne Main says: ‘This is a staggering sum of money and it shows that the benefit system has been in desperate need of reform. These claimants are enjoying levels of luxury that most working people, even on fairly high salaries, cannot dream of.’ Now though, and not before time, the axe has fallen and councils are writing to tenants to explain the effect of the changes. Mr Rostant was one of the first to receive a letter from Westminster Council saying his family’s housing benefit will be capped from January 16. The letter explains the law change will ‘make sure that people on benefit are not living in accommodation that would be unaffordable to most people in work’. A local councillor has also written to Mr Rostant to say that if the family can’t raise the extra £1,600 a week needed to pay the rent and do not find alternative, cheaper accommodation, his wife, Thirza, and their eight children (aged from three to 14) will be regarded as ‘intentionally homeless’ and won’t even get the capped £400 a week in housing benefit. Mr Rostant says: ‘I am negotiating with my landlord to get the rent down, but I don’t hold out hope. I am looking for another house. We wouldn’t be human if we weren’t scared. The children know what is happening. The little ones may have to move to another primary school and make new friends.’ He says that if his family has to move - which seems inevitable - his current neighbours have generously offered to put up his three eldest children so they can continue to go to the same school nearby where their father is a governor. But, whatever happens, it means a rude awakening for Andre, 48, Dutch-born Thirza (ten years his junior) and their children, Ida, 14, Ellen, 13, Andre junior, 11, Philip, nine, Hannah, eight, Louisa, six, Margaret, five, and Maurice, three. The case reveals the lunacy of the housing benefit system (introduced by New Labour to ‘empower’ tenants) which had been allowed to go unchecked for years.  Hassan Gilani, 58, has received up to £180,000 in housing benefits and disability allowance in the UK on top of £112,000 in benefits from Denmark Enormous sums of taxpayers’ money were wasted by paying private landlords extortionate rents on behalf of families whose own scant financial resources — or failure to work — meant they would never have been able to live in such accommodation without state aid. Although the crackdown on housing benefit now means millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money will be saved, many thousands of families who have enjoyed being feather-bedded for so long face an uncertain future. Mr Rostant, a Londoner whose varied career has included jobs as a postman, a financial services adviser and a clerical officer, is now a hypnotherapist who helps clients perk up their sex lives. His wife has done some part-time jobs, but, needless to say, their large family takes up most of her time. The Rostants previously lived in a council house, paying a subsidised rent, but then — in what they admit was a mad decision - moved into a series of privately rented addresses where they ran into financial difficulties. They sought refuge for some time in the Netherlands with Thirza’s mother and also lived in a hostel for the homeless. At one point they moved to Burnley in Lancashire, but they didn’t like the cold weather and returned to London in 2009 - moving into their current rented home which they found on the website Gumtree. One of the reasons they chose such an expensive address was because it is on the 36 bus route leading to relatives south of the Thames and they can walk to Trafalgar Square. Mr Rostant says he was given housing benefit by Westminster Council straight away to cover the rent for the property. He shares one bedroom with his wife while their eight children pack into the remaining three bedrooms. He adds: ‘The house was built as a three-bedroom council house, but it was sold to the man who is our landlord who squashed in the five bedrooms so he could get more rent.’ The house is just a quarter of a mile from the picturesque Regent’s Canal in Little Venice, where some houses sell for £7million. Many would say it was preposterous for the Rostants ever to imagine they could live there at the taxpayers’ expense. Now, with just nine days to find a new home, the family is claiming - with grim predictability - their human rights are being infringed by the benefit cap. ‘We are being denied our rights to manifest our religion by having children and by not being given anywhere to house the ones we have.’Mr Rostant has written to Westminster Council insisting that, as Catholics, they are a large family, and it is their human right to be offered accommodation to house them all. He refuses to concede that at a time of austerity, other hard-working families should not have to pay for him to keep having children and live in a house he cannot afford. His letter to the council said: ‘As married, practising Roman Catholics, our religion calls, at the very least, for us to be open in having children. ‘The act of marriage within our faith has been traditionally interpreted both by clergy and the lay community to be a calling to have many children, if that is physically possible. In short, Catholic families tend to be larger than typical British families. ‘We are being denied our rights to manifest our religion by having children and by not being given anywhere to house the ones we have.’ A spurious argument? No doubt. In any event, the appeal was ruled ‘out of time’ by the council. Thus the Rostant family is left facing a brutal return to economic reality. The new housing benefit cap means there are many others who are looking at the same future. One is single mother Essma Marjan, who, two years ago, moved into a £2.5million house with her six children (Zekia, 14, Abdulhakim, 13, Jehad, 11, Hamza, ten, Ayman, two, and a baby, Nasir) who were fathered by two different men whom she has never married. Her rent, a staggering £7,000 a month, has - up to now - been paid for by the taxpayer. The two-bathroom Victorian villa is also in Maida Vale and the 34-year-old woman (whose father is a Moroccan kitchen porter) was seen unloading two new flat-screen televisions and several leather sofas soon after her arrival. She has been able to live in such style thanks to the absurd generosity of the housing benefit system.  Staggering: The housing benefit bill costs taxpayers a staggering £20billion-a-year - with some unemployed families 'enjoying levels of luxury that most working people cannot dream of'. Westminster Council allowed her to move into the house after she complained that having given birth to her sixth child, her previous home (a three-bedroom £750,000 mansion flat half a mile away, with the rent also covered by housing benefit) was too small. ‘I needed a larger place when Nasir came along,’ she told the Mail. ‘The council agreed to £1,600 a week to cover my rental payments to a private landlord. They said there were no council houses big enough for my family.’ Across London, there is another family enjoying taxpayers’ largesse - but not for much longer, thanks to the rule changes. The seven-strong Saiedi family (from Afghanistan) has been getting £750 a week from Ealing Council for the rent to live in a £1.2million house in Acton, West London. No wonder that Philippa Roe, who is in charge of Westminster Council’s financial strategy, believes enough is enough. She says: ‘Many families claiming these huge housing benefits have no connection with Central London. Far away, people have heard the news and arrived from all over the world. ‘Some just stepped off a bus at Victoria coach station. Many - particularly from abroad - have very large families and the State has had to pay for their housing, whatever the cost and wherever they chose to live. ‘It is not fair on hard-working taxpayers. Such a family would have to earn hundreds of thousands a year to find £2,000-a-week in rent. ‘Only one per cent of the population could possibly afford it. There are perfectly nice and cheaper homes outside central London which can be rented for £400 a week.’ Of course, Andre Rostant disagrees. He says the new cap on housing benefit is cruel to families such as his. He goes on to claim that the policy is ‘social cleansing’ - aimed at ridding the richest parts of London of people viewed as cheats and scroungers. As we talk, his eight-year-old daughter Hannah runs down from the upstairs sitting room where her siblings are playing on the family’s computer. She is upset by the idea of having to move home, saying: ‘It’s not my parents’ fault that they can’t pay the rent for a big house because there are a lots of us.’ As she disappears, I ask her father whether he and his wife plan to have any more children. He shakes his head and says: ‘I think our youngest will have to be the last. In a few weeks’ time we might not even have a roof over our heads.’ It is impossible not to feel sympathy for him - but the cruel fact is that he has been cheerfully taking advantage of a system that was patently unfair and doomed to eventual collapse. Even a serial and unapologetic welfare claimant like Andre Rostant has, at last, come to realise that there is a limit to the munificence of the housing benefit gravy train. A major problem is that council do NOT in reality investigate housing benefit fraud. Lots of Europeans come to UK, get a council flat to sub-let and claim housing benefit whilst working in the construction or sex industry. Some live in the most prestige West End London locations and despite this the council don't investigate any fraud. Fraudulent Housing Benefit claimed by Celso Fernandez Lopez amounted to £500 per month from 999 to 2012 whilst he never paid income tax as a sex worker but received a luxury Maida Vale council flat as a single male, which he sub-let at £900 per month whilst claiming housing benefit then he purchased for £24,000 under the council’s ‘right to buy’ then sold for £180,000 to fund a luxury Brighton flat cash purchase whilst he has income from various businesses & 2 (owned outright) holiday flats rented in Barcelona.Despite police interest, Westminster Council have made zero effort to investigate this housing benefit fraud.
http://www.benefitfraud.org.uk/social-housing-fraud/index.html
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