Housing Benifits

[GypsyGSD]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask but if you rent from a private landlord and claim housing benefit as your a pensioner is it paid directly to the landlord or to the tenant to pay the landlord thanks Gypsy x

[Richard1966]

Its paid to the tenant. There are some very limited situations when it can be paid to the landlord but the tenant has to agree to this.

Housing Benefit is paid by your local authority.

If you are a local authority tenant, you will not get your Housing Benefit paid to you directly. Instead it will be taken off your rent so that you either pay no rent or a reduced rent (also known as a rent rebate).

If you are a private or housing association tenant and you don't come under the Local Housing Allowance rules, you may get Housing Benefit paid directly to you or to your landlord, depending on your circumstances.

If you come under the Local Housing Allowance Rules, your local authority will normally pay Housing Benefit to you, rather than to your landlord. You will not be able to choose to have it paid direct to your landlord. However, there will still be some circumstances where your local authority can decide to pay Benefit direct to your landlord instead of you, for example, if you're unlikely to pay the rent or have difficulty managing money.

From 1 April 2011, if the landlord agrees to lower the rent to help you stay in the property, it may also be possible for the landlord to be paid direct from the local authority.

If Housing Benefit is paid directly to you, this will be by cheque, giro cheque cashable at the Post Office, or straight into your bank or building society account.

Housing benefit is usually paid in arrears. This means that it is paid after your rent is due. It can be paid weekly, fortnightly, every four weeks or every month, depending on how frequently you pay your rent. You have a right to be paid fortnightly if your housing benefit is £2 a week or more and it is not being paid to the landlord.

[GypsyGSD]

Thank you so much for your reply

[Peter Pedant]

it is now paid to the tenant and the tenant cannot opt to have it paid to the landlord direct without a good reason.

such as badly controlled schizophrenia with a history of violence.

If the tenant is in arrears then you can apply to have it paid to you as Landlord and the local authority does that priddy quig as you are just about to evict and the council may have to find them accommodation otherwise.

This system doesnt work very well, and well over 25% get evicted.

what happens in reality is that the money gets paid into an overdrawn account and tenant cant then pay