I have a client who has been on full housing benefit for six years and lives in a H.A. property however she has built up very high rent arrears over this period and she has been paying back the rent arrears. She cannot understand why she is in rent arrears if she is on full HB.Rent arrears go back 6 years. What is the best way to determine how rent arrears have occurred? If she is on full HB , how can she get into arrears if the Benefits Office are paying the HB to the H.A? If rent arrears have occurred due to benefits office mistake does she have to pay arrears back?
This seems a complicated case, i appreciate some help.

Jeffery

I have many clients who get into arrears because they do not realise that housing benefit will not pay their water rates, which are included in their housing charge. However, this usually amounts to a few pounds a week.

Is there a possibility that water rates are included in your clients housing charge?

Another possibility is non-dependant deductions.


You could ask the housing association to provide you with her statement so that you can have a look at what has been being paid and whether there were any breaks in the claim.

Has Housing Benefit always been paid direct to the Housing Association? She may have received it direct herself in the past and not paid the rent with it. HB may not have been paid direct to landlord until the minimum of 8 weeks arrears had accrued. Also there
may have been overpayment recovery from a previous address etc.HA will be able to print rent statements right back to identify where problem started.

If rent arrears have occurred due to an official error , the claimant should receive the benefit due and be able to pay off the arrs. If she suspects an official error has occurred she should notify the H.A who should consider suspending recovery action until the issue is resolved. The claimant should bear in mind that she is liable for payment of rent therefore if she did not pursue the matter of the possible L.A error, the H.A would be quite within their rights to continue recovery action.

Jeannette

At the risk of adding pointless speculation, the possibility that the client did not always complete HB renewal forms also occurs to me as a possibility for any periods of time when this was still a requirement (prior to April 2004).

Without wishing to get all judgemental, claimants with long-standing direct payment arrangements do sometimes seem to run away with the idea that everything is "taken care of" from there on in and they never have to do anything. This can cause problems later on..!

Surely the landlord must have some idea of how/why/when problems with rent/HB payments occurred?