Moving over from ESA Support group to UC advice.

rich_shot2003

Can i just find something out.

I had a message on my UC account online saying my rent is going to be paid direct by UC but we wanted to pay the rent myself as think i am old enough to do that myself.

So it said in the message online if i did not agree with that to ask UC to review it so i sent them a message saying yes i wanted them to review it but have not heard back from UC.

so how long does it take them to answer messages that are sent via UC online account?

Have to say i do not understand why UC are going to pay it direct anyway unless my landlord has said to them they wanted it to be paid direct from UC.

huckster

Sounds like your landlord has asked for direct payment, as UC does ask the claimant for their response, if they want to challenge the direct payment. Normally UC will agree to the landlords request, unless there are really good reasons not to do so.

Suggest you ask the landlord if they submitted the request and if so why they have done so.

Journal message responses should be within 5 working days (excludes weekends)

poppy12345

Was your rent paid directly when you were claiming housing benefit? Are you in arrears? 

rich_shot2003

poppy12345 said:

Was your rent paid directly when you were claiming housing benefit? Are you in arrears? 

Yes it was direct when on Housing benefit and no not in any arrears.

huckster

I don't think UC were automatically continuing the direct payment to landlord, because this was in place under HB. I suspect the landlord has asked for previous arrangement to be continued under UC.

rich_shot2003

huckster said:

I don't think UC were automatically continuing the direct payment to landlord, because this was in place under HB. I suspect the landlord has asked for previous arrangement to be continued under UC.

Ok i will see what UC say when they answer my message that i sent end of last week to see if they will change it to it being paid to us so we can pay it as we pay all our other bills so see no reason why we can not do that with our rent.

kkkklinky

Some tenancy agreements have clauses that state rent has to be paid directly to the landlord by UC, if tenant is claiming benefits. My old tenancy did.
If landlord have requested direct payments they usually have a reason like rent arrears or as stated above its part of the tenancy.

I have no idea if these clauses are legally binding but I just let UC pay them because it was going to the landlord regardless.

rich_shot2003

All sorted now as UC have now cancelled the direct payment to my landlord.

so will be paid to me in my UC.

Newcad

kkkklinky said:

I have no idea if these clauses are legally binding...

Nope, they are "unenforceable" clauses.

There was also a recent court ruling that the DWP can no longer set up direct rent payments from UC at just a landlords request because of arrears, they must get the tenants consent before setting up any direct payments of rent.

The DWP have this week confirmed that they will not be challenging the court ruling..

kkkklinky

Newcad said:

kkkklinky said:

I have no idea if these clauses are legally binding...

Nope, they are "unenforceable" clauses.

There was also a recent court ruling that the DWP can no longer set up direct rent payments from UC at just a landlords request because of arrears, they must get the tenants consent before setting up any direct payments of rent.

The DWP have this week confirmed that they will not be challenging the court ruling..

i suspected they may be unenforceable but most tenants may not know that and will probably just ask UC to pay directly to prevent conflict with landlords, which I ended up doing. 
I'm shocked that landlords can be refused direct payments even with arrears if the claimant disagrees because I can see that antagonising landlords even more about renting to benefit claimants because at least before they were guaranteed to get paid the rent eventually. Yes it's illegal to discriminate but that can be tricky to prove especially when you have lots of potential tenants.