Housing assoc keeping HB refund?

I have a client who was paying Bedroom Tax when she shouldn’t have, and the local LA has credited her landlord (housing association) with nearly £400 to compensate for the money she unnecessarily paid

The housing association have told her they will credit her rent account with the amount and are refusing to hand the money over to her. As she gets full HB anyway she wont see this money and her rent account will be £400 in credit ad infinitum.

Im no whizz at HB regs, but im not sure if this is correct.

The client paid BT (wrongly) out of her own pocket, yet she cant get the money back?

Any ideas ??

Thanks in advance, as always

I can see why this is a problem.

Before I go any further I should say that I think the HA should repay the credit. However I can understand the HAs position.

It may not be the case that your client will always be in credit. HB is paid to landlords 4 weekly in arrears so depending upon when the HA receives the refund request your client may be £400 in credit or may be several hundred pounds in arrears (I.E the day before the HB payment is received).

Therefore, although I agree it would be morally right for the HA to make the refund, I doubt there is anything that will require them to make it.

The claimant could tell the local authority that she would like to have HB payments paid to her in future and on the facts provided there is absolutely no reason why the LA should not comply with her request.  If she then judges it appropriate to claw back £400 for herself that’s her affair.

I agree with HB Anorak suggestion, tell the claim to make a formal request for a change in payee, if the LA still refuse, she can appeal the decision to refuse making a payment to her.

I don’t think the LA will be willing to take it to a tribunal, it wouldn’t be worth the effort.

HA may be keeping money as rent account could have been in arrears. Maybe worth requesting a statement of the rent account. Normally a HA would refund any credit. Asking the HA for their reasons may establish a bit more.

just to say that the housing association i work for has refunded tenants that had their bedroom tax deductions refunded to their accounts, if it left the account in credit

Can only say what my HA would do. Would refund any credit on rent account and in fact auditors would not be happy if we kept a credit on the account. Rent should be paid a month in advance but any balance would be paid out. There may also be other debts there too which they may want to cover e.g.court costs. I would ask the HA in this case for further information.

Tony Bowman has said what I was thinking.  Any way you look at this, it’s the client’s money.  I was going to suggest the small claims court would be your best option!

I’d like to know why the HA is taking this stance. Certainly, I’ve yet to encounter a HA that refuses to refund a credit to the client under these circumstances (and the situation has arisen fairly often since the introduction of BT) and it does suggest either there’s some specific reason why they’re refusing to refund (existing rent arrears would be the obvious one) or they’ve adopted a generic policy (in which case it certainly needs to be challenged).