Housing Benefit if rent paid a year in advance

Client is a part time worker who gets some HB to cover rent for his current private accommodation. He wants to move out and after some considerable searching has been offered a year long tenancy elsewhere. However when the landlord found out that he gets HB he has insisted on the year’s rent being paid in advance. The client says he could just about borrow money to pay the year’s rent but wants to know what would happen when he put in his claim for HB. He clearly doesn’t want to pay the money/sign the tenancy until he knows what the council response to his claim will be.

HB Reg 8 says you are treated as still liable for rent for HB purposes if you have already paid it.  Sometimes councils suspect deprivation of capital in these circumstances: a handy way of putting your capital out of reckoning is to pay a lot of rent up front.  But in this case the claimant did not have the capital to start with and will only be obtaining it for the purpose of paying rent so deprivation should not be an issue.

Out of interest, does the same apply for universal credit?

If it does apply to universal credit, which regulation would it be?

This situation arose in Bath Jobcentre about 6 years ago. As you can imagine lettings in the City of Bath are pricey and the claimant had to pay 6 months rent up front amounting to several thousand pounds. I checked at the time that there would be no question of deprivation of capital and the UC Housing Costs would be allowed. I was working for the DWP at the time.