8th February, 2013
The Residential Landlords Association has just published an article which I prepared. It focuses on the issue of HB Overpayments, and, the oftentimes, overzealous attempts by Council Housing Benefit sections to recover large sums of money, sometimes many thousands of £’s, directly from landlords. In the case highlighted £22K was involved.
Nationally, every year £1.3 Billion is recovered by councils. A large chunk of this is deducted from PRS landlord’s scheduled payments, creating in turn, the likelihood of rent arrears if the tenant doesn’t make up the shortfall.
However, on many occasions, the Council tries to recover the sum in full from unsuspecting Landlords even though the law and DWP guidance was radically changed from April 2006 to stop this form of landlord abuse.