Tenancy sustainment officer

My client in North West London is looking for a Tenancy Sustainment Officer to join their busy team. The key purpose of this tenancy sustainment role is to provide a high standard of housing advice in order to keep customers within their homes. The role will be required to deal with more complex tenancy sustainment cases by conducting in depth casework on a range of areas. The role will contribute to the reduction in the number of households going into in temporary accommodation and living within unsuitable housing in the borough. The job consists of the following: middot; To provide a specialised housing advice service to clients in housing need including complex landlord and tenant disputes, disrepair, mortgage and rent arrears and welfare benefits middot; To prevent homelessness and resolve housing difficulties through good quality casework and by using a range of prevention tools middot; To help maximise the income of households by advising on back to works programmes, claims for welfare benefits, Discretionary Housing Payments, Crisis Fund and Homeless Prevention Fund middot; Where prevention is unsuccessful, to provide comprehensive housing options advice and if needed a seamless handoff to the housing assessment function middot; To respond to threats of illegal eviction and landlord harassment ensuring that cases are managed appropriately so that there is sufficient evidence to pursue prosecutions in accordance with the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 middot; To work effectively with landlords to sustain tenancies whilst also building positive relationships middot; To holistically assess a customer rsquo;s circumstances by conducting interviews, undertaking visits to customers in their homes and maintain accurate case notes and accurate information on databases middot; To be able to understand and analyse complex information and to effectively communicate at all levels either face to face, by telephone, in writing or electronically, for example, with senior managers, solicitors and customers whose first language may not be English middot; To ensure that personal knowledge of relevant housing advice and legislation is kept up to date through the research and attendance at training including landlord and tenant law, welfare benefit regulations and property condition law. middot; To work effectively with a range of partners including the council and third sector organisations and proactively promote the prevention agenda to achieve joint outcomes for customers middot; Provide training and support on tenancy sustainment to council services and partners middot; To detect and report any incidents of suspected fraud to the relevant manager and to liaise with other departments such as the councils Corporate Anti-Fraud Team (CAFT), Housing Benefit, Internal Audit and Legal middot; To follow safeguarding procedures and policies to ensure vulnerable children and adults with housing difficulties receive the right services at the right time. middot; To work closely with internal and external colleagues, including social services, our contractors, occupational therapists, education services, support workers, hospitals and other medical professionals. middot; To be committed to providing constructive feed-back to and ideas to colleagues about the quality of the service, system and procedures being provided to customers in order to ensure the Service continually improves from the customer rsquo;s perspective. If you are interested in this role, please send your CV ONLY in the first instance to Wayne Molsher