What is Universal Credit; how will it affect tenant incomes and your organisation's critical revenue from rents?

Universal Credit should, by December, 2024, replace the assistance, currently offered by Housing Benefit for the majority of your "working age" tenants. To date, the rollout of the scheme has been fraught with problems, for both tenants and landlords alike. DWP estimate around 20% of all claims fail at the initial validation stage. Most landlords have experienced Rent Arrears, mainly caused by the 5 week delay in making the first payment to tenants and DWP's use of processes and systems e.g. "Direct Payments to landlords", still not fit for purpose. The extent of loss organisations' experience can be related to just how well informed, hands-on and effective, its staff is, assisting and advocating, on behalf of tenants. During the next 18 months, DWP plans to add a further 2 million claimants. This will prove the most challenging phase of the rollout and bring to an end, dependency on "legacy benefits" like, Income Support, JSA, Housing Benefit etc. Our specialist advice is focused primarily on how landlords can best mitigate potential losses, both for tenants and your organisation's income management. With our help, you can learn how to anticipate and tackle potential pitfalls; maximise your rental streams; minimise rent arrears and the costs associated with recovery action. We call this - "Investing to save!"

Courses for Housing Associations & Councils

We offer bespoke courses for Housing Association and Council staff, designed to improve their understanding of the component parts of the new scheme; maximise entitlement to "housing costs" for your tenants; avoid unnecessary rent arrears and the associated need for repossession action. We're also very much involved in the Private Rented sector and are retained by the NRLA to provide advice, support and training to its 80,000 members. Our courses are very practical, participative in nature and affordable and we have no objection to neighbouring organisations sharing the costs. Our testimonials confirm just how effective they are viewed by delegates. You'll find examples of current courses on the site. We we can also offer variations, based on your preferences and priorities. Contact us to find out what we can offer your business.

Courses for Private Landlords

Most courses are delivered in hotel facilties in regional centres. Our courses with the NRLA are similarly run in regional hubs or online. However, increasingly, we're asked to deliver face-to-face sessions for individuals or groups of landlords and/or Letting Agents) anxious to access the critical information, and ensure the training is bespoke and delivered locally, thus avoiding costly travel and overnight expenses. The cost can also be shared between the organisations

Universal Credit Full Service is now operating in your area!

UC Full Service has been operating throughout the UK since 2018. As the rollout of the "Natural and "Managed Migration" phases expand, more of your tenants will transition from Housing Benefit (LHA) to Universal Credit. If you haven't already gathered, the new scheme is quite different to HB/LHA, not least because of DWP's poor administration and problematic communication protocols. So it’s important you act now to familiarise yourself with the key elements of the scheme, what’s expected of both tenants & landlords, otherwise you’re almost certainly going to experience a significant loss of rental income