Who Gets Your Housing Benefit ?

Own_My_Own

This is probably on the wrong board, but who gets your HB ?

I get my HB then pay my landlord the whole amount. I thought this was normal, but I heard on Radio 4 today it is a pilot scheme. A scheme that is going wrong, as many people are now in debt. In Yorkshire arrears are up 5 fold.

Then just to confuse me more, our area was not named as one of the 5 test areas.

So I was just wonder, do you get your HB or does it go straight to your landlord ?

dogcat_2

Mine goes straight to my landlord....although I think when the Universal Credit comes in....most people will end up getting it and will have to sort payments out themselves.

pmlindyloo

All about it here:

http://www.housing.org.uk/policy/welfare_reform/direct_payments_to_landlords.aspx

BigAunty

In the private sector, it is routinely paid to directly to tenants unless the council believe they are too vulnerable to handle their finances or they have a history of arrears. When this legislation was introduced, one of the government's express aims was to make tenants responsible for their own personal budgets and is seen as something that helps with employability.

When this was introduced, funnily enough, the govt exempted all social housing tenants (to the fury of private landlords) and it looks like they are looking to extend the policy of making tenants responsible for handing over their HB to their landlord or face the consequences if they do not.

fishybusiness

I get my HB then pay my landlord the whole amount

Most people are paid this way, except those classed in a financial risk category and also current bankrupts I believe.

Own_My_Own

pmlindyloo wrote: »

All about it here:

http://www.housing.org.uk/policy/welfare_reform/direct_payments_to_landlords.aspx

But that is what confused me, as I am not in one of the test areas. Or are these areas also giving HB straight to people in social housing.

Does everyone in the country who rents privately get their HB paid to them ?

So these tests are only for people in social housing ?

Own_My_Own

And if these tenets can't cope with paying their own rent, how are they going to cope with monthly UC payments ?

It is going to be a shabbles.

fishybusiness

Reading the article I think it refers to housing associations and social housing landlords.

306chris

I'm in Cheshire with a HT house and the HB goes direct to my HT. It can come to me and it did for a period.

I heard that under Universal Credit it will go straight to the claimant, the logic being that you will then get used to paying your bills monthly just like everyone who works (really need a sarcasm font)

My HT have already told me that they are expecting arrears to increase dramatically. Perhaps this is the point so that HT go bust, how the torries would love that.

BigAunty

Own_My_Own wrote: »

..

Does everyone in the country who rents privately get their HB paid to them ?

So these tests are only for people in social housing ?

As per before, when LHA was introduced in April 2008, the ability for a tenant to switch direct payments to their landlord was stopped and only tenants that the council deem as too vulnerable to manage the payments or who have fallen into arrears of 8 weeks can switch to their landlord receiving it.

Before implementation, they also ran pilots in a number of areas.

Here are two out of 6 of the reasons why it was introduced and meant that tenants in the private sector routinely receive their HB rather than the landlord.

[*]Personal responsibility: paying the allowance to tenants encourages them to take responsibility for budgeting and paying their rent themselves.
[*]Increased work incentives: greater certainty about what in-work benefit they could receive is expected to help tenants bridge the gap between being out of work and taking a job.

It seems that the change to the Universal Credit system, which is seeking to mirror employment and have the claimants receive a single monthly payment, will include social housing tenants. UC has a similar philosophy behind it which is seeking recipients to take responsibility for their budgeting to a greater degree.

This briefing paper outlines the proposed extension of paying HB to social housing tenants.

"When Universal Credit is phased in from April 2013 the Government intends that the housing component will be paid direct to tenants; although it is envisaged that vulnerable tenants and pensioners will continue to have their housing costs paid direct to the landlord. This will bring the social housing sector in line with the private rented sector where tenants, except in certain limited circumstances, have received their Local Housing Allowance direct since April 2008 "

http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06291

BigAunty

Own_My_Own wrote: »

And if these tenets can't cope with paying their own rent, how are they going to cope with monthly UC payments ?

It is going to be a shabbles.

Apparently, the vulnerable in social housing are going to be exempt.

I find it absolutely amazing that so many social housing tenants don't even have a bank account and so while I share your reservations about increased debts/rent arrears, I am glad that it forces a greater participation in quite basic participation in society, such as having a bank account and applying for things online, to at least tackle that side of social exclusion.

Private landlords greatly resented the move to their tenants receiving their HB directly and so I can understand why social housing landlords are similarly fearful, particularly as they have higher rates of vulnerable/workless tenants compared to the private sector.

Having said that, one of the other things that private landlords despised about HB claimants (pre LHA) is that some tenants were not proactive about their HB claims or rent arrears, seeing them as primarily an issue for the landlord to sort out with the council, not taking seriously any tenancy issues because the rent was invisible to them as they didn't handle it and they didn't feel responsible for any payment issues (when in reality, the landlord and council have nothing to do with each other, no direct relationship but it got blurred with HB)