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Managed Payment request
Hi there
UC is new in this area currently 4 tenants have claimed. I have sent UC47’s for 2 of them requesting both housing costs and a percentage towards arrears.
Problem is, legal proceedings have commenced for one. I assume a decision on the managed payment will be made but housing costs not paid until the pay day in 6 weeks time? I assume when the case calls in court the judge will not grant decree pending UC outcome.
Anyone got experince of this & once UC is up and running how long do APA requests take?
It seems that there is a national backlog in assessing housing costs element, even where the tenancy and rent evidence is in. It is not coming into pay until several weeks after the first UC payment date, in other cases several months!
At court whoever is defending the tenant will normally ask for an adjournment pending the UC outcome. APA request being received does put the HCE on hold so they won’t get paid to the tenant while the APA is being decided. Court can be informed of this.
Also as a landlord you should have an escalation telephone number for urgent cases due in court or with risk of eviction. This will lead to HCE and APA being assessed quickly.
Well, well, well:
‘The welfare reform minister said the number of Universal Credit claimants in debt was higher than he had expected. He described the proportion of claimants already in arrears before they switched over to direct payment of benefit for housing costs under Universal Credit as “frightening”.’
“There is a lot of complexity here; it is not straightforward at all. I am looking at it with some urgency,” he said. “We need to understand what the existing arrears are. They are much higher than we expected – 50% – and that is a frightening fact.”
It’s not all tickety-boo, and it may be a bit complex. Time for my afternoon lie-down….
Lord Freud is an expert in Universal Credit and an expert in the bedroom tax and yet he is shocked and appalled that people are already in massive rent arrears before they go onto UC and can’t understand why…....
Thanks for replies. I have spokent to DWP as this case gets more complex. the original UC claim was made on 16/5/16, claim was not validated as claimant didn’t attend WFi. Says he doesn’t answer witheld numbers & didn’t receive the 3rd request via letter. He was told by JC+ to make a new claim which he has done twice. I called UC today who told me these claims were ‘lost in cyber space..’ as his original claim was not closed down after 60 days. He has been advised to claim a backdate however this is further complicated as JSA was closed down from 12/4/16. So now having to ask for a UC backdate to cover HCE but possibly HB if backdate not awarded.
Incidentally, the email address for sending APA requests is invalid. DWP assure me this is the correct address but there’s a fault with it!
[ Edited: 20 Jul 2016 at 05:02 pm by shawn mach ]Now had 2 APA’s awarded but no notification had to search system using NINO to tie in with tenant. Anyone received calculation notifications?