One of our tenants applied for housing benefit and requested that the payments be made direct to us as landlords. After almost 20 weeks we contacted the Local Authority who confirmed that they had made a payment of over £3000 to the tenant. We made a request that future payments be made direct to us in view of the large arrears on the account. Suffice to say the tenant spent their rent money on a different venture. The Local Authority still proceeded to make payments direct to the tenant, it has taken a new reminder for them to promise to make future payments direct to us. They have admitted that they should have done so earlier.
We suspect that a polite request for payments made to the tenant after the first lump sum payment will fall on deaf ears. What other avenues are open to us to try and recoup this money caused by the local authority's mal administration?

Hi Moufassa, this problem is covered by a thread on rightsnet

http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=234&mesg_id=234&page=2

and this thread on the HBinfo.org site

http://hbinfo.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1646

it looks like you have a case for getting the money from the LA. And, whats more, the consensus seems to be that any payment made to the HA to correct the LA's mistake cannot result in the first payment to the tenant being treated as an overpayment.

good luck! ...jim