H O U S I N G Dominic Norwell & Myra Dicken The Possible Impact of UC on a Housing Landlords Income

H O U S I N G Housing Benefit (The Current Position) The Possible Impact of UC on a Housing Landlords Income Is paid fortnightly in arrears (four weekly in arrears if paid directly to landlord) Can be paid prior to occupation if new property is awaiting adaptations. Can be backdated for working age with good cause up to six months (for pension aged claimants three months automatically) Can be paid on 2 properties * (if tenant moves into new property and contractual obligation remains).

H O U S I N G Universal Credit The Possible Impact of UC on a Housing Landlords Income The first week of any new claim is forfeited First payment due 1 month and 1 week after date of claim. Will not be paid on 2 properties even if there is a contractual obligation. There are exceptions (dv) In some circumstances backdates will be considered: only for 1 month (failure tech, disability or health issues)

H O U S I N G Universal Credit Possible Impact in Monetary Terms The Possible Impact of UC on a Housing Landlords Income The claimant will have difficulty making up payment of rent for the 1 week UC is not paid at the start of a claim £100 The rent account for any new claimant will be roughly 7 weeks in arrears before payment £700 The landlord will not be aware of the UC claim unless informed by the tenant, we have to rely on tenants informing us.

H O U S I N G The Possible Impact of UC on a Housing Landlords Income Any tenant transferring between landlords with a contractual obligation of 4 weeks notice will incur arrears on the former property £400* This challenge forms the basis of our presentation to open the floor up to discuss how we as partners can minimise the risk presented to us by the potential for most tenants moving between landlords not being eligible for dual property rent payments.

H O U S I N G Reduce the Notice period –Clearly every social landlord has the discretion to reduce the notice period on a property –This has normally in our experience only been in exceptional circumstances –Quite often new tenants get “the call” on a Friday saying the tenancy starts the following Monday –Comparison to the private sector –Do Homechoice need to introduce an agreement for notice periods to be more flexible –Or do we need to be more realistic in terms of the comparison to the private sector ?

H O U S I N G Universal Credit Impact in Monetary Terms The Possible Impact of UC on a Housing Landlords Income Universal Credit in its current form will only affect working age claimants. Currently the HRA receives approximately 69% of rental income via Housing Benefit of which 44% is in respect of working age tenants and 25% of which is in respect of state pension age tenants £5,681,763 and £3,310,736 respectively for 2016/17 budgeted income. 44% or around 1200 tenants x £800 per tenant the impact Could be £960’000