Mother gets £170,000 a year in benefits to live in £1.2m house

Toorpakai Saindi, who has seven children, has been granted an estimated £400 a week in child and local tax benefits, while her landlord receives £12,458 a month because there is no other suitable property available.

Mrs Saindi, who has four sons and three daughters aged eight to 22, approached Ealing Council in west London in July after being made homeless. The authority has a legal obligation to find her a seven-bedroom home.

The mother, who came to the UK from Afghanistan seven years ago, said: "I always thought the housing benefit was a lot, but I'm told that is what it is for homes like this here."

She added: "It's a lot of money, but the council pay it. This is their problem. I don't know why they pay so much."

The council says both the benefit and rent payouts are set by central government.

Her son Jawad Saindi, 20, said although it felt like they had won the lottery, his mother complains that the house is too big to clean.

"If someone gave you a lottery ticket would you leave it? No. You take what you get given," he said.

"It's not that we wanted this big house - my mum is not happy because she has to clean all of it. The first day we moved in here we got lost because it was so big."

The Local Housing Allowance, introduced across England on April 7, enables landlords to find out the maximum amount of money available before a price is agreed.

Estate agents Foxtons said similar properties command rents of only about £6,000 a month.

Landlord Ajit Panesar, who is acting within his rights, fixed a value for his Acton property so that the Rent Service – an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions - could advise the council what it should pay. It came up with a figure of £12,458 a month.

Mr Panesar said: "I can't help it if the law says I should get paid that amount of money."

The Saindis were first housed in a three bedroom property in Enfield. Four years later they moved to a five-bedroom house in Ealing and three months ago were placed at their current address which they are entitled to have by law given the size of their family.

Councillor Will Brooks, Cabinet Member for Housing at Ealing Council, said the case highlighted "some of the absurdities of the housing and benefit system".

"In cases such as this, where there are very few seven-bedroom properties, landlords will obviously seek the absolute maximum as set down by the government. This clearly puts the council, the government and taxpayers at a significant disadvantage," he said.

"The Council believes that urgent changes are needed to the LHA and in particular for the publication of maximum rent levels to be ended" he said.

Mark Wallace, campaign director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "The people running the welfare system seem to have forgotten money doesn't grow on trees. This family could be helped without the need for such a huge bill."

COMMENT:

Warning on ex-services homeless

One in 10 homeless people in the UK are former members of the armed forces, a charity working with veterans says.

A survey in 1997 by the Ex-Service Action Group on Homelessness suggested that 22% of people who were "street homeless" had a military background.

Veterans charity, the Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation, said that efforts by the government and the voluntary sector had brought that down to about 10%.

It fears the numbers may rise because of service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The BBC has also done its own research on the subject, contacting every day centre in the UK.

Eight out of 10 of those that replied confirmed they had clients who had once been in the forces.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) insists it is not complacent about the issue and has a UK-wide network of resettlement centres.

Everyone about to leave the service goes through an interview to assess their needs, it added.

NEED WE SAY ANY MORE EXCEPT...