Tenants Universal Credit includes an amount towards their housing costs.

Is it possible to have the housing payments made directly to the landlord?

The tenant can ask for an alternative payment arrangement for Universal Credit to have rent paid directly to a landlord. The tenant can also request fortnightly instead of the usual monthly payments.

Your tenant can also request your Universal Credit payments can be split if you are part of a couple. The current criteria states alternative payment arrangements can be made if; are in debt or rent arrears, have a disability.

Disability includes;

a mental health condition
homeless or are at risk of losing your home
have experienced domestic violence
have a learning difficulty, like problems with reading or writing, are in temporary or supported accommodation, are 16 or 17 or leaving care
have an addiction to drugs, alcohol or gambling.

Even if none of the above applies you can still request a change to how you are paid and to who if you struggling with payments.

It was reported yesterday that the DWP will be paying arrears to affected customer from the date they transferred to the benefit from a legacy benefit.

Previously the government were only going to be paying arrears from October 2014 even though some people had been underpaid since 2011 when migration to the benefit.

They have now confirmed arrears will be paid to those affected from the earliest date they were underpaid.

No action is required and those affected will be contacted, but as always you should make enquiries to check if you were possibly underpaid.

There have been no statements as to whether additional compensation will be paid or additional sums for those claimants who may have incorrectly paid for things like prescriptions, dental treatments, etc. when they would have been exempt from such costs.

British Landlords Association

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