Help – Tenant moved out and no rent payment from Universal Credit?

UC may not be at fault. The tenant may well have left your property on 17th April but they may have started paying rent to the new landlord last month.

Is there any money in a deposit that would cover the missed rent. If not, please do a MCOL for your losses.

Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 22/04/2024 - 10:27This happened to us but with LHA before UC was ubiquitous. Tenant declared she had left some weeks earlier and claimed on new address from that date but we were able to forward tenant's message to us confirming she had quit our property the previous day and the LA were persuaded to make the payment to us. This helped towards the loss of rent whilst we spent weeks returning the house to a lettable state after the damage, mess and rubbish she left. The DWP may not be so amenable but it's surely worth a try. Otherwise, as Cider Drinker says, MCOL.

Unfortunately you need to chase tenant.

UC will stop paying rent as soon as tenant says. Say rent due the 10 th. But tenant advised they move the 5 th.

They will pay new landlords or tenant on the tenth. They don't care tenant has moved or not.

Reply to the comment left by Old Mrs Landlord at 22/04/2024 - 10:59
Unfortinatly i think you will have yo accept it as one of those things, your point is totally correct as uc pay in arrears. Ie if a uc payment is recieved on 7th april that would be for the month of march... your former tennant would have to inform uc that she has moved house immediatly and provide a new tennancy agreement. As she wont be in any arrears with her bew landlord her housing elliment entitlement will be payed in her uc payment... sounds like your former tennant is using money that you believe should be sent to you. It sounds like she has manipulatef the system so her new landlord gets his first rent payment in advance. This occurs quite often.. asvyou are no longer her landlord. I am surprised they even disscussed any thing to do with her claim

I’ve had a similar experience with this. And I agree with the view of other comments - UC’s approach is ‘tenant says no’. They don’t abide by the tenancy - the tenancy is an agreement between landlord and tenant. If somethings not been done right, this is to be resolved between landlord and tenant only. They don’t get involved. And in most cases, tenant will simply say I’ve moved and my new rent is X and my new landlord is Y. UC will update accordingly.

99.99% of the time the only information UC receive is from the tenant, and within the Assessment Period. They sometimes forget to report any changes full stop. They sometimes like trying to report they've moved before they do, even when everything else is correct and above aboard. Indiscipline and impatience leads to declaring incorrect changes of circumstances.

Lucky you ..!
At least they’ve gone and not left massive arrears…!!
Else thousands in Legal’s too..!!!
Consider MCOL

Reply to the comment left by Hitesh at 23/04/2024 - 09:44
I get your point BUT LL's should NOT be 'grateful' that something could have been a lot worse. The system is fundamentally wrong if this situation can even happen.

Everyone banging on about how best the RRB gets through before Labour gets in, but all this will be is another floored piece of legislation, with yet more problems down the line.

UC is telling lies
I've experienced the same with council tax staff and HMRC.
Caught them both out on several occasions.

The tenant has a legal responsibility by law to notify any changes to circumstances when they happen. This includes rental payments, and advising a new rent agreement or rental rate.
They have done this.
UC will not deal with you as you not the claimant.
That's the system that the crocodile teared IDS set in place. If you voted Cons, you voted for this.
Sunak appears to be having a rout of any claimant types.....i guess he thinks this is the way to election success, but vilifying the vulnerable is never a great strategy....we could all be in this position some day.
By all means pursue your tenant but they are likely 'men of straw' so you will be wasting time and money so doing.
Move on and learn by experience.
You are also aware that any council cannot or will not act to help a person with social housing unless the landlord has a possession order, and the bailiffs come knocking.
It sounds like they received council help in the end?

It is a stressful process for all, but Gove has sat on the fence for so long and given no direction whatsoever. Again i think you need to aim your arrows at an incompetent Sunak.......who I think, was once overheard saying he despised poor people...this is not a society that any of us want.
Yours sincerely, an embarrassed conservative!