Question

Housing Benefit and Universal Credit (England) | Preventing Controlling and Recovering Rent Arrears (England)

universal credit tenant in arrears

13 Oct 2016 | 1 comment

hello, i have sent universal credit 4 landlord request for payment forms 2 on 2/8/16 and 2 on 29/9/16 both were signed for by them the next day, have recieved on confirmation or correstondance from them at all, and they wont speak to me because i dont pass security, what can i do
also have 2 tennants who wont give me date of birth and ni number for forms, can i send it in without ?
even local council benifit office hoping it gets scraped !
thanks.

Answer

1 Comment

  1. guildy

    I don’t really have an easy answer for this.

    It is a requirement under the legislation that a decision about payment is made. The only way to force them to make a decision (whether that be to pay you or not) is by way of Judicial Review. This is very costly and time consuming.

    Do you know if in the meantime the tenant has been paid the housing element of their Universal Credit? If they have been paid since your request, you could maybe treat that as a decision not to pay you direct (not sure if that would work). As such, you should be able to appeal the decision by first asking for a mandatory reconsideration and then going to the tribunal. You must make the request for a mandatory reconsideration within one month of their decision (you haven’t had a decision yet but if treating payment to tenant as a decision, within a month of them being paid).

    You really need to ensure all your tenants complete our application for accommodation before they move in because that would obtain all the information (date of birth and NI number) at the beginning when they are willing to provide it. With these existing tenants I’m not sure what else you can do other than leave the information off the form and see what happens.

Submit a Comment

View your previously asked questions. (Will only show questions from August 2020)

(Link above back to topic only works for questions added after end of August 2020)