Ending an Alternative Payment Arrangement for Housing Costs

If the landlord is refusing to end the APA MPTL then I think the best option is for her to make a complaint to her landlord, and escalate it up to the ombudsman if they won’t listen.

The default in UC was always supposed to be direct payment to the claimant, so UC ought to be only too happy to end an APA. But in fairness to UC, they don’t have any visibility of the rent account, so they are pretty much bound to accept what a social landlord tells them (social landlords are “trusted partners”) about what’s in the tenant’s best interests.

For what it’s worth, if this was one of our tenants I would probably agree that it would be appropriate to end the APA. But there are questions of context - like how did the arrears build up originally, has she made regular payments to make up any shortfall, and how stable is her work? On the other hand, why not give it a go, and if the tenant doesn’t make the payments on time and in full, the landlord can always apply again.

According to the ‘Paying rent’ section of the Universal credit and rented housing guide for landlords all APAs (including managed payments to landlord) are regularly reviewed to ensure that any managed payment remains in the claimant’s best interest. May be worth asking DWP whether and when they’ve reviewed the APA and what factors they’ve taken into account.

The factors to consider when looking at APAs are provided in Annex A of the Universal credit: alternative payment arrangements guidance

Looks like Tier 1 ‘Currently in rent arrears or threat of eviction or repossession’ applied when the APA was granted but may now be tier 2 ‘History of rent arrears’. Under the latter, it specifically stipulates:

consider the fact that the claimant may now be financially capable and able to manage their own financial affairs effectively

So, if you can get the DWP to review the APA and get them to accept that the claimant is now financially capable (indeed more so, if the APA was ended), they can end it without a request to do so from the landlord. If they refuse to review, a complaint and/or threat of JR could be other routes to consider.

Kelly - 30 May 2024 01:52 PM

Looks like Tier 1 ‘Currently in rent arrears or threat of eviction or repossession’ applied when the APA was granted but may now be tier 2 ‘History of rent arrears’. Under the latter, it specifically stipulates:

consider the fact that the claimant may now be financially capable and able to manage their own financial affairs effectively

So, if you can get the DWP to review the APA and get them to accept that the claimant is now financially capable (indeed more so, if the APA was ended), they can end it without a request to do so from the landlord. If they refuse to review, a complaint and/or threat of JR could be other routes to consider.

This is clearly correct: the DWP don’t have to wait for a request from a landlord to end an APA - it’s the DWP who make the decision. But the underlying problem with persuading the DWP to end an APA is that they will generally believe their Trusted Partner about whether a person’s housing is at risk if they end it. In the olden days it was quite hard to get them to grant an APA at all, and then they would “review” them after six months.

I suppose you might force the DWP to do a review, but I don’t think you’d necessarily change the decision. In JR terms; it would be hard to persuade the High Court that it was Wednesbury unreasonable for the DWP to give weight to a social landlord’s view about whether an APA MPTL was appropriate for their tenant (who was previously four months in arrears).

So I stand by my suggestion that a complaint to the landlord is probably a better option. I’m also thinking about the fact that social landlords have just come under a much tougher regulatory regime - so they’re really not keen on letting complaints get to the ombudsman.

I believe another option would be to declare a change of circumstances - where you live and what it costs. Say you have moved but then just put in the same address, and ideally with a moving date within the current AP. I think the UC system is clever enough to know that an APA has to stop when someone moves, but it’s not clever enough to realise that moving from one place to the same place with the same landlord is not really a move. If that doesn’t work then ending the UC claim and claiming again should do it.

Thanks for all the replies, a lot to go on here and great advice. The Case Manager has agreed to contact the landlord to ask their permission to end the MPTL and have said if they say no it can not be ended, I guess that relates to the Trusted Partner aspect.
We will see what happens with that and then look at the other options suggested, we did ask for a MR for the decision not to agree to our request to end the MPTL but they said it is not something that is open for MR- not convinced that is correct? 

Slightly off topic but I am finding dealing with Social Housing providers increasingly difficult, they often ghost me and do not want to seem to work together to support clients- some of the larger London Housing Associations have their own Benefit Caseworkers and so do not seem to want to deal with those from other organisations.

I think its worth looking at the law underlying the APA

An APA rests on Regulation 58 (1)of the UC &C (Claims and Payments ) Regs which provides

Payment to another person on the claimant’s behalf

58.—(1) The Secretary of State may direct that universal credit be paid wholly or in part to another person on the claimant’s behalf if this appears to the Secretary of State necessary to protect the interests of—
(a)the claimant;
(b)their partner;
(c)a child or qualifying young person for whom the claimant or their partner or both areresponsible; or
(d) a severely disabled person, where the calculation of the award of universal credit includes,by virtue of regulation 29 of the Universal Credit Regulations, an amount in respect of the fact that the claimant has regular and substantial caring responsibilities for that severely disabled person.

There is no appeal against a Reg 58 decision (see Sch 3 para 1(n) UC &C (Decisions and Appeals ) Regs ) but its strongly arguable that R (on the application of MS HELEN TIMSON) v -  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WORK AND PENSIONS [2023] EWCA Civ 656 is applicable to UC just as much as ESA

It seems to me that the case manager here is simply wrong because the focus must be on the interests of the claimant not the third party who is asking for payment

Timothy Seaside - 30 May 2024 05:26 PM

I suppose you might force the DWP to do a review, but I don’t think you’d necessarily change the decision. In JR terms; it would be hard to persuade the High Court that it was Wednesbury unreasonable for the DWP to give weight to a social landlord’s view about whether an APA MPTL was appropriate for their tenant (who was previously four months in arrears).

The issue though isn’t that they haven’t weighed the wishes of the landlord against the wishes of the tenant and made a decision going one way or another within the bounds of reasonableness - its that they have outright refused to consider any representations made by the tenant on the basis that ending the MPTL is something which is available exclusively to the landlord. It would be the same sort of challenge as in Timson where the issue is essentially the validity of a blanket policy and/or the abrogation of the decision making role.

I think you may be right that the easier target here is the social landlord, but I’m not convinced that the DWP’s position would survive a JR.

A bit of an aside - one of the Income Officers I work with dislikes MPTL, particularly when wages fluctuate as it does make it difficult for tenants to manage payments. One of the other problems that they’ve identified is that it can be hard for the landlord to end an APA! They put in requests to UC but they often don’t get acted on.

Elliot Kent - 30 May 2024 06:16 PM

The issue though isn’t that they haven’t weighed the wishes of the landlord against the wishes of the tenant and made a decision going one way or another within the bounds of reasonableness - its that they have outright refused to consider any representations made by the tenant on the basis that ending the MPTL is something which is available exclusively to the landlord. It would be the same sort of challenge as in Timson where the issue is essentially the validity of a blanket policy and/or the abrogation of the decision making role.

I think you may be right that the easier target here is the social landlord, but I’m not convinced that the DWP’s position would survive a JR.

My point was exactly that: you might (should) be able to get the DWP to do a review (with the threat of JR, or just by asking them nicely). But a fair review doesn’t necessarily change the decision. And it seems unlikely to me that the court would agree it was unreasonable for the DWP to take the tenant’s and landlord’s positions into account and then come down on the side of the landlord.

In this case UC have now agreed to review the MPTL but have said they are going to go with whatever the landlord says. This does sound like they are fettering their discretion - so yes it’s probably unlawful.

As a side note, we have often had tenants contacting us to tell us UC won’t agree to end an APA or TPD unless the request comes from us. Although I always make a point of telling the tenant this is legally wrong, I also go ahead and email UC to let them know we agree with the tenant that the payment should stop (unless we don’t agree, obviously, but that’s only happened once or twice). I can only think of one occasion when UC agreed to end a TPD without asking us - and frankly they were wrong, because the tenant still had significant arrears. Maybe they should go on a course.

And responding to Liz, I would agree that MPTL is not always helpful or the right thing to do, and it is frustrating that there is no procedure for ending them (or TPD) in the Landlord Portal.

Doesn’t schedule 6 para 7 of the claims and payments regs apply in this case? If she is earning over her WA (if applicable), if not applicable, she has any earnings for 3 APs, the deductions should stop (and should never have applied at all if she was earning over her WA in the AP before the deductions started, or had any earnings if WA not applicable)
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/380/schedule/6/paragraph/7

barbs1000 - 04 June 2024 10:25 AM

Doesn’t schedule 6 para 7 of the claims and payments regs apply in this case? If she is earning over her WA (if applicable), if not applicable, she has any earnings for 3 APs, the deductions should stop (and should never have applied at all if she was earning over her WA in the AP before the deductions started, or had any earnings if WA not applicable)
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/380/schedule/6/paragraph/7

Keep re-reading those provisions and they appear to relate to debt deductions for rent arrears rather than managed payments to landlord for monthly/current rent liability? Feel like I’m missing something…

Your absolutely right Kelly - shouldn’t try to post quickly while waiting for our system to work! Need to read the question properly first. Apologies all.

BHCAC - 30 May 2024 06:01 PM

The Case Manager has agreed to contact the landlord to ask their permission to end the MPTL and have said if they say no it can not be ended, I guess that relates to the Trusted Partner aspect.

This is public law wrong 101. The Case Manager is stating that they are going to unlawfully delegate a decision which is for the SSWP to the landlord - effectively saying it is a decision for the landlord.

A landlord being described as a “Trusted Partner” (whatever that means) in some policy cannot change the law that means it is for SSWP to decide whether to do a MPTL.