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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

Specified accommodation and MPTL

HB Anorak
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Benefits consultant/trainer - hbanorak.co.uk, East London

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Joined: 12 March 2013

A housing association providing mainly specified accommodation for single homeless people would like an arrangement in place from the start of the tenancy/licence for personal service charges not met by HB to be deducted from UC and paid direct to the provider.  DWP says this is not possible because third party deductions can only be made if the charges are in arrears ... provider wants to avoid that happening in the first place with the most chaotic end of its client group; and deductions are only possible for service charge debts in any case if the calculation of the UC award included a housing element.

At first glance DWP appears to be correct: one of the conditions for a third party deduction is that the claimant is in debt with the payments in question, and if the item is a service charge there must be a housing element.  See paras 6 and 7 of Schedule 6 to the UC C&P Regs.  Problem with specified accommodation is that there is no housing element as the claimants get HB.

But what about an alternative approach: payment of service charges as an MPTL under the general discretionary provision in Reg 58?  There is nothing in Reg 58 that requires the claimant to have a housing element, or to be in arrears already.  There is no legal reason why service charges cannot be mat by a preemptive Reg 58 MPTL is there?