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Housing Benefit offers support to people on low incomes who rent from private landlords. Please browse the following links for advice for landlords of private tenants in receipt of Housing Benefits:
For more information, please contact our Benefits section at the Civic Centre on (0115) 901 3970 or email housingbenefits@gedling.gov.uk
If your tenant claims any of the following benefits, they may also be eligible for Housing Benefit entitlement:
Please note that Job Centre Plus and the Pension Service usually handle claims from individuals applying for both Housing Benefit and any of the above. (External sites) In this case, the information needed to assess claims for Housing Benefit is handled by these agencies, who then pass this information onto our Benefits section.
If your tenant is not intending to make a claim for any of the above but still wishes to claim Housing Benefit, they may do so by applying direct to our Benefits section. For more information, please visit our 'Making a Claim' page.
In either case it is important the claimant submits their application as soon as possible as any delay could result in loss of benefit.
Where the Tenancy Agreement does not provide all the necessary information, we may require you to supply additional details to support your tenant's claim. To avoid delays during the application process, we ask that landlords supply the following information as proof of rent:
Your tenant's Housing Benefit entitlement may not cover the full amount of their rent, for more information, please visit our Local Housing Allowance page. Also note that Housing Benefit may be further reduced if:
Housing Benefit is normally paid the Monday following receipt of the claimant's application. However, if the claim form is received in the same week as the tenancy started, we can pay Housing Benefit from the Monday of that week where rent is due on a weekly basis.
Housing Benefit cannot normally be paid for a period before the person moves into the property, even where they have a liability to pay rent before moving in.
In special circumstances, however, a claimant may be treated as occupying a property before actually moving in. For example, where a delay is necessary to adapt the new home to meet the disablement needs of the claimant or a member of the family. For further advice, please contact our Benefits section using the details provided above.
Payments for new Housing Benefit claims will be made direct to the tenant for as long as they are entitled, except in a small number of cases where the tenant is vulnerable or unable to manage their own rent. For more information, please visit our Local Housing Allowance page or download our Direct Payment Policy below.
Before payments are made to landlords, we must be satisfied that the landlord is a 'fit and proper person', which is established by checking the landlord has not:
Where a tenant is unable to manage their own rent, a landlord seeking direct payment of Housing Benefit should complete the Direct Payment Application form below:
Landlords of private tenants with rent arrears of eight weeks or more can also ask us to pay Housing Benefit directly to them using the form below:
On receipt of this application, we will suspend all Housing Benefit payments and write to the tenant asking for their comments. We will also advise both the landlord and tenant of our decision once all facts have been made available to us.
The tenant can ask for their Housing Benefit payments to be backdated for up to 6 months for work age claimants from the date they make their request in writing, providing there is 'good reason' to do so. Pension Age claimants may request backing for 3 months and do not need to provide good reason for the delay. For more information, please visit our Backdated Claims page.
The Housing Benefit claimant is responsible for both providing the information needed to process their claim and for contacting us about their claim. Therefore, we are unable to discuss Housing Benefit claims with landlords unless we have the tenant's written consent to do so, as included on their application form.
However, if Housing Benefit is paid or is due to be paid direct to the landlord, we can provide them with certain information about the claim without the claimant's consent, including:
Where payments of Housing Benefit are made to the landlord we will send a notification letter to advise:
When a landlord receives direct payments of Housing Benefit, they must notify us immediately of any change of circumstances for tenants they know receive Housing Benefit.
For example, if a tenant moves out of a property even though they are still liable for rent at the property, we expect the landlord to make regular checks to confirm that the tenant is still living at the property where they are receiving Housing Benefit payments.
We would also expect landlords to keep accurate and up-to-date records of the rent being paid by their tenants in case they get in to arrears and have to ask for direct payments.
Overpayments occur where benefit has been paid to which there is no entitlement. This may happen for a number of reasons and most overpayments are recoverable.
Where landlords are in receipt of direct benefit payments, any overpayment may be recovered from them. This could happen where we feel it was reasonable for the landlord to know they were being overpaid. For example, an overpayment may be recovered from the landlord where a tenant moves out of the property and we were not informed.
Landlords who disagree with decisions to recover overpayments from them can ask us to reconsider our decision, providing they write to us within one calendar month of the date of notification. For more information, please visit our Appeals page.
Sometimes overpayments are recovered from tenants by making deductions from their ongoing benefit payments. Where payments are made direct to the landlord, the tenant will be responsible for making up the shortfall between the benefit paid and the amount of rent due.
Although we are unable to discuss a tenant's claim with their landlord, we will always try and help when a tenant has rent arrears or where the landlord is considering taking legal action.
If you are considering taking legal action (including eviction) against a tenant in receipt of Housing Benefit, we urge you contact our Benefits section using the details provided above.
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