Housing assocation rent arrears?

poppy12345

Newcad said:

poppy12345 said:

Newcad said:

Housing Benefit if paid directly to HA's is/was paid every 4-weeks so it made no difference how many Mondays were in a particular year.

Mine is paid weekly, directly to HA and not 4 weekly. 

Is that a direct to the HA payment though, or paid to you?
You can have weekly HB if it is paid to you.
But that would be very unusual for direct-to-landlord payments.Those are normally made every 28 days by HB.

It's not paid to me, it's paid directly to HA and has been since I moved into my current home in January. In September the payments were made on 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th. 

My daughter claims UC and her rent is paid directly to HA on 24th of every month. We live together.

An APA can include payments directly to LL. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-alternative-payment-arrangements/alternative-payment-arrangements#managed-payment-to-landlord 
For my daughter I didn't even have to ask, it was offered. I'm her appointee so it was a good thing, one less thing for me to worry about. 

Newcad

As I say that weekly HB direct payment is unusual then, but different councils have different rules as we well know.

An APA can include payments directly to LL

.Indeed it can, but as you say that direct payment to LL is stil paid monthly.

I'm just looking further into APA's and Scottish Choices but haven't found any examples of the UC statement for them - yet.

I suspect that they will list the first part-month payment as a deduction for an advance from the full month payment, and then the rest of the statement will be as usual?
That would seem to make sense but I have never seen one to confirm it.

If anyone is willing to share an example of such a statement  (suitably redacted for personal details of course) then that would be appreciated.

ancojo2

Thanks for all the replies, I'll give them a call again and arrange a payment schedule just so they stop pestering, I mean what do they think I'm going to do over one weeks rent run away with it and move abroad! Its hard enough getting them to do any work when it needs done so I think they can wait for a full weeks payment.

Robbie64

poppy12345 said:

Newcad said:

poppy12345 said:

Newcad said:

Housing Benefit if paid directly to HA's is/was paid every 4-weeks so it made no difference how many Mondays were in a particular year.

Mine is paid weekly, directly to HA and not 4 weekly. 

Is that a direct to the HA payment though, or paid to you?
You can have weekly HB if it is paid to you.
But that would be very unusual for direct-to-landlord payments.Those are normally made every 28 days by HB.

It's not paid to me, it's paid directly to HA and has been since I moved into my current home in January. In September the payments were made on 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th. 

My daughter claims UC and her rent is paid directly to HA on 24th of every month. We live together.

An APA can include payments directly to LL. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-alternative-payment-arrangements/alternative-payment-arrangements#managed-payment-to-landlord 
For my daughter I didn't even have to ask, it was offered. I'm her appointee so it was a good thing, one less thing for me to worry about. 

Are the payments you think were made by the HB section of your council on each of those weeks actually payments of Housing Benefit? Some Housing Associations (mine included) have their rent account computer software set up to show an amount equivalent to one week of HB as being credited to your rent account each week when in fact the HB credit is made by the local authority just once every 28 days. The HA rent account software shows a weekly credit of HB to show how the rent account would look if an HB payment was actually being credited to a rent account each week plus it also has the intended effect of preventing the computer system from producing a long printout of tenants who are in arrears simply because the HB payment is being credited every 28 days. As far as I am aware, only council tenants automatically get HB paid weekly. HA tenants usually get HB paid every 28 days.

I have online access to my rent account and can actually see two rent accounts: one which includes a credit equivalent to my HB payment being made each week and one which shows the HB payment being made only once every 28 days. The former has the effect of making the balance on my rent account show as £0.00, the latter always shows a balance in arrears.

poppy12345

Robbie64 said:

poppy12345 said:

Newcad said:

poppy12345 said:

Newcad said:

Housing Benefit if paid directly to HA's is/was paid every 4-weeks so it made no difference how many Mondays were in a particular year.

Mine is paid weekly, directly to HA and not 4 weekly. 

Is that a direct to the HA payment though, or paid to you?
You can have weekly HB if it is paid to you.
But that would be very unusual for direct-to-landlord payments.Those are normally made every 28 days by HB.

It's not paid to me, it's paid directly to HA and has been since I moved into my current home in January. In September the payments were made on 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th. 

My daughter claims UC and her rent is paid directly to HA on 24th of every month. We live together.

An APA can include payments directly to LL. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-alternative-payment-arrangements/alternative-payment-arrangements#managed-payment-to-landlord 
For my daughter I didn't even have to ask, it was offered. I'm her appointee so it was a good thing, one less thing for me to worry about. 

Are the payments you think were made by the HB section of your council on each of those weeks actually payments of Housing Benefit? Some Housing Associations (mine included) have their rent account computer software set up to show an amount equivalent to one week of HB as being credited to your rent account each week when in fact the HB credit is made by the local authority just once every 28 days. The HA rent account software shows a weekly credit of HB to show how the rent account would look if an HB payment was actually being credited to a rent account each week plus it also has the intended effect of preventing the computer system from producing a long printout of tenants who are in arrears simply because the HB payment is being credited every 28 days. As far as I am aware, only council tenants automatically get HB paid weekly. HA tenants usually get HB paid every 28 days.

I have online access to my rent account and can actually see two rent accounts: one which includes a credit equivalent to my HB payment being made each week and one which shows the HB payment being made only once every 28 days. The former has the effect of making the balance on my rent account show as £0.00, the latter always shows a balance in arrears.

I have access to my rent account also but there's only one account. The only other payments I see on there are my DD, which includes payment for water and the shortfall of rent due to the 53 Monday's. 

I will contact them when they open today and ask them if my rent is paid weekly or 4 weekly and will report back to confirm either way. 

Newcad

When I moved to UC I stopped my direct-from-benefit rent payments and set up a monthly DD to pay my rent.

It goes out on the same day that my UC is normally paid, so in effect it's no different to direct payment from UC.
The UC goes into my bank, the rent DD goes straight out, I don't touch it and don't have to do anything other than check the amount they are asking for when the rent changes in April..

PS. It is important to check. My HA also wanted to set my DD's to cover 53 weeks of rent this year.
I called them and pointed out that at that time (1st April 2024) my rent account was 3 weeks in advance, at the new rent, so there were actually only 50 Mondays payments that needed to be covered until 1st April 2025.
I also pointed out that if I paid the DD that they were asking for I would then be 6 weeks in advance on 1st April 2025.
I proposed a smaller DD, one that still leaves me 3-weeks in advance on 1st April 2025 and they accepted it without argument.

poppy12345

Just to update the thread, I rang my Local Authority and they confirmed that my HB is paid weekly to the HA and not 4 weekly, just as I thought it was. 

HillStreetBlues

poppy12345 said:

Just to update the thread, I rang my Local Authority and they confirmed that my HB is paid weekly to the HA and not 4 weekly, just as I thought it was. 

My old council pays it weekly, every 2 weeks & every 4 weeks depending on if council tenant (or HA), private tenant direct to LL, or private tenant paid to tenant, another one  every two weeks to everyone.
There doesn't seem a standard system in place.

Robbie64

poppy12345 said:

Just to update the thread, I rang my Local Authority and they confirmed that my HB is paid weekly to the HA and not 4 weekly, just as I thought it was. 

Thanks for updating. Getting HB weekly is much better as it doesn't produce the outcome of putting a rent account into arrears, which is what happens when HB is paid every 28 days in arrears.