I'm a Landlord - what information can you give me?
We believe that landlords are an important stakeholder in the service that we provide. We aim to work with landlords to ensure that they receive payment promptly and to ensure that overpayments are minimised. In return we ask landlords to respect our obligations towards claimant confidentiality and the data protection act when they make enquiries about their tenants.

We can pay your tenants housing benefit entitlement directly to yourself provided your tenant agrees or if they are more than eight weeks in arrears with their rent payments. This may change for some tenants after 7th April 2008 following the introduction of the Local Housing Allowance.
Please note that if you accept direct payment form us we may require you to pay back money if your tenant receives housing benefit to which they are not entitled.

When we pay housing benefit directly to a landlord and their tenants entitlement to housing benefit changes we may ask the landlord to repay the money that has been overpaid. Each case is decided on its own merits. If we decide that it is appropriate to recover the money from the landlord we will invoice them. The invoice will show the period of the overpayment the name of the tenant and the amount of the overpayment