Good morning DWP wrote to me this week, confirming it would pay my landlord client £1500 in respect of 4 missing months “housing costs”, originally refused at the point his tenant moved from “live” to “full service” Universal Credit, earlier this year. The reason DWP gave for refusing payment was…

Good morning Although I spend a large part of my time dealing with Housing Benefit and Universal Credit queries and disputes, occasionally, I assist clients challenge Council Tax demands. Invariably, I’m able to resolve disputes with the Council concerned, but, on occasions, need to pursue the issue to a Valuation…

Good morning I’ve repeatedly encouraged private landlords to pursue complaints against DWP, concerning its abject failure to properly administer its Alternative Payment Arrangement (APA) scheme and comply with the commitments it made to Parliament, in this respect. Some of you may recall my open letter to DWP’s Director General, Neil…

Good morning I was contacted by one of our Housing Association clients and asked to assist with a case concerning one of their tenants, who had been misled by her local council into claiming Universal Credit when, in fact, she was “ineligible”, due to the fact she qualified for the…

Good morning DWP has just made a “backdated” award of £3000 in Universal Credit “Housing Costs” to a Housing Association client of mine, fully clearing off rent arrears, that had been accruing, since February 2018, when their tenant was wrongly advised, by DWP, to cancel his Universal Credit claim. DWP…

Good afternoon The Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) have just published its annual report for 2018/19. A large part of the report, not surprisingly, focuses on the final phase of Universal Credit’s Managed Migration exercise – and explains, in detail, the various exchanges it’s had, with both DWP and Parliament…

Good morning DWP has just issued its latest statistics on Universal Credit, covering, amongst other things, the numbers of claims and awards made so far, broken down, and including an analysis at regional and district level. The figures cover the period up to 11th July 2019 and can be found …

Good morning You’ll find below, an exchange I’ve had with Neil Couling, DWP’s Director General, relating to the way DWP is currently mishandling the Third-Party Deductions (TPDs) scheme, especially as it relates to rent arrears recovery and levels of deductions being applied to some tenant awards. I wrote to DWP…

Good morning Amber Rudd, Secretary of State, Work & Pensions made a statement to Parliament yesterday confirming the commencement of the Harrogate (Managed Migration) Pilot; and announced the go ahead of the compensation scheme for claimants who previously qualified for Severe Disability Premium (SDP) who transferred to Universal Credit, prior…

Good afternoon More details from DWP’s guidance to landlords can be found here. Private landlords are landlords who usually own the property they are renting out. Private landlords can be: a company that owns a lot of properties a person or family that owns one or more properties Private landlords…