Housing and Council Tax Benefits

Information for Landlords

Fareham Borough Council works closely with local agencies and the private rented sector to provide secure, good quality accommodation for people.

If you are a private landlord and would like to know more about the options available for renting your property through the Council or leasing your property through one of our partners, please contact our Housing Options Team on 01329 236100, visit the Housing Options web pages or our partner, reallettings, for further information. 

First Wessex also offer a Residential Leasing scheme - for more information please contact them directly on 0800 8402 813.    

We aim to work with you to ensure that you receive the money and service that you expect, and to ensure that overpayments are minimised. If difficult situations arise, such as when a tenant falls into substantial arrears, we will do everything we can to work with you to protect your income.

In return, we expect you to respect our obligations towards claimants and the confidentiality of the records and information that we hold. We are obliged to adhere to the Data Protection Act and the Human Rights Act, and will usually be unable to assist landlords who request personal information about their tenants.

If you are unfamiliar with Housing Benefit, you should read through the information pages on this website. There are many rules which may limit the amount of benefit that we can pay. This may mean that a tenant will not receive enough benefit to pay their rent in full. You should pay particular attention to the information on the page How Much Benefit Will I Get?

Electronic Payments for Landlords

Landlords are able to access details of Housing Benefit payments in a quicker and more secure way. We have set up a secure website whereby landlords can log on (using their landlord reference and a password) and view the details of all payments that have been made to them in the last 2 years together with the breakdown of that payment. More
 

Direct Payments to Landlords

Under the Local Housing Allowance scheme that has been introduced by Government, when a tenant applies for Housing Benefit payment may only be made direct to them unless it is considered that the claimant is ‘vulnerable’ and incapable of managing their financial affairs, is unlikely to pay their rent or has accrued 8 weeks rent arrears.

From April 2011 these safeguards have been broadened to extend the discretion to cases where direct payments to the landlord may help to secure a new tenancy or maintain an existing tenancy.

 

Fareham's Benefits service has a vulnerability policy (218 Kb) which incorporates the April 2011 changes for tenants, landlords and third parties to use to minimise the risk of tenants falling into rent arrears and being put at risk of eviction and to reassure landlords that safeguards are also in place for them.  This document also details the procedures that the Benefits Service will follow when making a decision of who Housing Benefit should be made to, how the affected parties will be notified of this decision and what procedures will be used when reviewing a decision.

 

The Government hopes that paying Housing Benefit to claimants will promote personal responsibility and empower them to budget for themselves; that it will help the unemployed to develop the skills they will need when they move into paid work; and that it will encourage them to open bank accounts and pay their rent by standing order or direct debit, thereby helping to promote financial inclusion.

 

It is very important that your contact details are kept up-to-date so that we can make you aware of any changes as soon as possible.

 

Any direct payment made to a landlord will be paid every 4 weeks in arrears.

 

We prefer to make payments direct to your bank account (BACS) and this method of payment can provide many advantages:

• Payment is direct to you and therefore eliminates the possibility of payments being delayed or lost in the post
• The payment is treated as cleared funds allowing you earlier access to the money
• Also saves you time and trouble paying the benefit cheques into your bank account and the payment is now automatically transferred

Please download the Bacs Request Form (158 Kb) and return it to this office. Alternatively you can contact the Benefits section and we will send you a form.

 

The Local Housing Allowance scheme applies to claimants in the private sector and mainstream private tenancies only. The following types of tenancy are exempt from this new scheme:

• Housing Association tenancies

• Protected cases, such as supported housing provided by certain local authorities, social landlords, charities and voluntary organisations

• Tenancies which commenced prior to January 1989

• Caravans, houseboats and hostels

• Tenancies where part of the rent is attributable to board and attendance

Claimants renting within these sectors continue to receive Housing Benefit calculated under the old rules.

 

Tenants With Substantial Arrears

If you can provide us with evidence that your tenant is more than 8 weeks in arrears with their full rent payments, you can contact us to arrange to consider having future benefit payments paid direct to you and to decide if your tenant should be classed as 'vulnerable'. We will not be able to pay you for any of the arrears if payments have already been sent to your tenant, and you will have to resolve the collection of these arrears yourself. However, we will try to ensure that any future sums are paid directly to you to ensure that the arrears do not get any larger.

 

Overpayments

Sometimes when we pay Housing Benefit and the claimant's details change, we may end up making an overpayment which we will ask the claimant to repay. The effects of the overpayment get more serious if the claimant fails to inform us of the change of details for a long period of time.

 

Claimants are given clear instructions when they apply for Housing Benefit that they must inform us immediately if there are any changes of circumstances. However, despite this, claimants often neglect or forget to inform us, and overpayments frequently occur.

 

If we have made payments directly to you and these were incorrect because of information that you failed to provide, we may require you to repay the overpayments to us. You should then treat the repaid sum as rent arrears, and deal with the recovery of these arrears by the most appropriate method.

 

If you fail to repay an overpayment which we have demanded, we may recover the overpayment from future direct payments of benefit. We are reluctant to recover payments in this way, but will not hesitate to do so if we feel that there is no alternative.

 

If we invoke these powers (Social Security Administration Act 1997 Section 16), it means that each tenant for whom Housing Benefit is being paid will have their direct payment reduced by the amount of the overpayments we are collecting. You must reduce each of these tenant's rent liability by the full value of their Housing Benefit entitlement, and you cannot recover the reduction by treating them as rent arrears.