Housing Benefit Overpayment Case Study

Caridon Landlord Solutions was set up with one purpose in mind; helping landlords secure solutions to any Housing Benefit (LHA) issues which might arise with local councils or DWP in relation to Universal Credit.

Most landlords have encountered a problem where they have received a “Housing Benefit notification” stating the benefit claim has ended and to arrange future payments with the tenant and don’t have the time and experience to look into the problem.

I have provided a recent case study where the tenants benefit stopped resulting in the landlord receiving an overpayment and the tenants needing to apply for a backdate.

Our PRS client approached us as they received a benefit notification stating that the tenant’s Housing Benefit Claim had been cancelled as the tenant failed to submit the requested information within the Local Authorities time frame.  As a result of this the landlord also incurred an overpayment for the period 11^th October 2016 – 04^th May 2017, a total of over £7000.00 would have to be paid back to the Local Authority and the tenant would have to pay the rent from 5^th May 2017.

Due to the tenant’s vulnerabilities, the high risk of the tenant not being able to pay the rent and the massive debt the landlord had now incurred the landlord decided to contact Caridon Landlord Solutions for assistance.

The first step was to ascertain a chronology of events of how the overpayment had occurred this was done with the corroboration of the Tenant and Landlord.

Our next step was to verify that the tenant’s income was not above the threshold for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support. It was important for the tenant to engage with us as we needed to obtain as much information as possible. Once this was confirmed, we assisted her in making a new application for Housing Benefit and submitted it to the council.

We were aware that if the tenant qualified for Housing Benefit the date of claim would be significant as the tenant would have to submit a backdate request. We then proceeded to identify the correct regulations necessary to satisfy our backdating request, and appealed the decision of the overpayment of the landlord.

According to the Housing Benefit Regulation 2006:- 

1. HB/CTB must be backdated if the claimant requests it in writing, and “has shown continuous good cause for {his/her} failure to make a claim” (para. 5.63)
2. HB/CTB cannot be backdated for more than three months before the date of the written request (even if this is later than the claim for HB/CTB)
3. Backdating is obligatory once the Local Authority decides that the claimant had good cause throughout the period in question for failure to make the claim earlier.

The tenants Housing Benefit Claim was put into payment whilst a decision was made regarding the landlords over payment appeal and the tenants backdate request.

Today we have received confirmation from the Local Authority that the challenge made against the over payment was successful and that the tenants has been awarded her backdate of Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support.

The landlord is extremely happy with the result as the tenants’ arrears are now cleared.

If you’ve encountered similar problems and would like us to pursue a similar course of action- get in touch, with us now!

Our experienced and dedicated team of professional; deal with a plethora of issues such as Overpayments, Direct payments to Landlords, Universal Credit, and rent arrears which relieve the many burdens that stress you out as a Landlord. Freeing you up to focus on what really matters.

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