Advice for landlords of Housing Benefit claimants

If your tenant gets Housing Benefit, we may pay this directly to you.

You must make sure that the amount of benefit payment you receive on behalf of your tenants is correct.

Local Housing Allowance

Local Housing Allowance limits when we can pay benefits directly to landlords. 

The rules only affect new claims or tenancies.

If you have a tenant who has had their Housing Benefit paid direct to you from before 7 April 2008, it will continue to be paid direct until the tenant either stops claiming or changes address.

The landlord's responsibility

As a landlord, you must tell us if your tenant's circumstances change and you know about the change.

These include:

• if your tenant moves out
• changes to the amount of rent charged
• changes in services included within the rent
• changes to the number of people living in the property. This includes the number of people who have moved into the property as well as those who have moved out
• changes in circumstance or income of people living at the property, if known
• if your tenant is 8 or more weeks in arrears with their rent
• any circumstance resulting in rent payments being withheld

You can email or call us about these changes.