Housing Benefit and landlords
This page is intended to help private
landlords understand the rules relating to their tenants
claiming Housing Benefit, and the landlords responsibilities where
payments of Housing Benefit are made direct to them.
What is Housing Benefit?
Housing Benefit gives help towards housing costs for people
on low incomes.
The person who makes the claim must be liable or must be the
partner of the person who's liable to make payments in respect of
the dwelling that they occupy as their home.
How is a claim for Housing Benefit made?
Housing Benefit entitlement can be calculated and claimed
online.
If the person claims Income Support, Jobseekers
Allowance, Employment Support Allowance or Pension
Credit, they'll make a claim for Housing
Benefit at the same time. It's important that they make their claim
for Housing Benefit straight away as any delay could result in loss
of benefit.
To speed up the process of dealing with the claim it would be
very helpful if you could provide proof of rent which confirms the
information stated on the Housing Benefit claim form.
More information available in our page on New benefit claims.
What information is required about the tenancy?
The tenancy agreement may not provide all the
information needed and we may require you to provide
additional information as requested on the form.
It would help us to speed up the process of dealing with the
claim if you could ensure that the proof of rent includes the
following:
- The landlord or agent's name and address (business
address);
- The date the tenancy agreement started;
- The amount of rent charged for the property;
- What's included in the rent eg fuel, water, meals etc; and
- How often the rent is due eg weekly, monthly, 4 weekly.
Local Housing Allowance (LHA)
Since April 2008 Housing Benefit is calculated using Local
Housing Allowance rates. Local Housing Allowance is based on
the number of bedrooms a tenant's household needs this is
called the size criteria and is worked as follows.
The claimant is allowed one bedroom for every adult couple and
any:
- Other adult aged 16 or over;
- Two children under 10;
- Two children of the same sex up to 15; and
- Other child.
Joint tenants will only be able to claim Local Housing Allowance
for themselves and their dependants.
Single claimants aged under 35 will be entitled to the standard
rate for a room in shared accomodation. This will be based on
properties where the tenant has a room of their own but shares all
or some of the facilities.
Further information on Local Housing Allowance can be found
at Local Housing Allowance -
landlords
From what date will Housing Benefit be paid?
Housing Benefit is normally paid from the Monday after
the claim is received. However, if the claim is received
in the same week as the tenancy started, we can pay Housing Benefit
from the Monday of that week if the rent is paid on a weekly
basis.
Housing Benefit cannot normally be paid for a period before the
person moves into the property even where they've a liability to
pay you rent before they move in.
However, in some cases, a claimant can be treated as occupying a
property for up to 4 weeks before they moved in, for example, if
the delay in moving is necessary to adapt the new home to meet the
disablement needs of the claimant or a member of their family. They
may need to contact us for advice if they're unsure whether they
can get benefit before they move into the property.
Can my tenant ask for their Housing Benefit to be
backdated?
Yes, your tenant can ask for their Housing Benefit claim to be
backdated but there are different rules depending on their age.
If your tenant is under 60 years of age -
Housing Benefit can be backdated for up to 6 months.
They'll need to submit a backdate request, in writing, and
show that they had continuous good cause for not claiming
earlier (ie: tell us why they couldn't claim
earlier). They can request backdated benefit on the Housing
Benefit claim form or:
If your tenant is aged 60 or over -
Housing Benefit can be backdated for up to 3 months. We'll
normally do this automatically. But, we can only do
this if they had to pay rent for this period and are entitled
to claim. If this is the case, we'll write to them to ask
for further details if we don't have them.
If we don't start their claim from 3 months
before they make their claim, ask your tenant
to contact us.
Can landlords be paid Housing Benefit direct?
Local Housing Allowance is normally paid to your
tenant.
You can ask us to pay
LHA
direct to you if your
tenant has rent arrears of 8 weeks or more. You'll need to put your
request in writing and tell us exactly what period the rent
arrears are for and how much the arrears are. We'll then
suspend further payments and write to your tenant and ask them
for their comments. We can also pay LHA direct to you if your
tenant is unable to pay their rent because they are vulnerable.
We'll advise you and your tenant of our decision once we've all
the facts available to us.
Before we pay a landlord directly we have to be satisfied that
the landlord is a “fit and proper person”. We do this by
considering if the landlord has:
- Previously been involved in fraudulent acts related to Housing
Benefit;
- Habitually failed to report changes in tenants circumstances
which they might reasonably be expected to know might affect
entitlement; or
- Habitually failed to repay overpayments which they've been
properly notified about and any requests for a review of the matter
has been properly undertaken or made available.
What information can you give to landlords about claims?
It's important you understand it's the person who
claims Housing Benefit who is responsible for providing the
information we need to deal with their claim and also for
contacting us about their claim.
We're unable to discuss Housing Benefit claims with you unless
we have your tenants consent to do so. They must sign the
declaration on the claim form if they wish us to discuss their
claim with you.
If Housing Benefit is paid or will be paid directly to you and
you've signed the claim form to confirm that you understand your
responsibilities, we can give you certain information about their
claim without their consent.
The information we can give you includes:
- Details relating to payments that have or will be sent to
you;
- The period the payments are for; and
- Details about any overpayments that we ask you to repay.
Where Housing Benefit is paid to you we'll send you a
notification letter, which will advise:
- When payments will start and how much Housing Benefit the
claimant will get each week;
- If their Housing Benefit award changes or ends;
and
- If we're deducting an amount from their on-going Housing
Benefit award in order to recover an overpayment.
Landlord responsibilities when receiving direct payments
Where you receive direct payments of Housing Benefit you
must tell us immediately if you're aware of any changes
in the circumstances of any of your tenants that may affect their
benefit award.
For example you need to tell us if your tenant moves out of
the property even if they're still liable for the rent at the
property.
We expect you to make regular checks to confirm your tenant
is still living at the property where you're receiving Housing
Benefit payments.
Housing Benefit is normally awarded up to the Sunday following
the date they moved out of the property if their rent is paid
on a weekly basis.
Do I have to repay overpayments of Housing Benefit?
If you disagree with our decision to ask you to repay an
overpayment you can ask us to look at our decision again. Details
will be provided on the overpayment notification letter that we
send to you. It's important that you write to us within one
calendar month of the date of the notification if you disagree with
our decision.
Where we think the overpayment has been caused by
fraud and the landlord hasn't been involved in the fraud we'll
normally ask the claimant to repay the overpayment, which has
resulted from the fraud.
Appeal
There are special rules if you're not claiming the benefit
yourself for example, if you're a landlord and a decision is made
about whether Housing Benefit is paid directly to you or if a
decision has been made to recover an overpayment of Housing Benefit
from you. If you're an appointee for another person you can ask us
to look again at a decision about their benefit and you may be able
to appeal for them.