UC and Rent Arrears Reduction

We have trying to get tenants rent arrears deduction reduced from 20% to 10%.
The Service Centre told a colleague and it has to come from the landlord.
She emailed the UCHousing team to request the reduction and was told it had to come from the tenant. Yip that’s what I thought too !

But oh no, I and the tenant contacted the Service Centre by telephone to be told again that it has to come from the landlord. I explained to them that the guidance states that it has to come from the tenant.
The Service Centre refused point blank to consider reducing the level saying again it had to come from the landlord.
I explained I was the landlord. Not good enough, had to be a letter from the landlord advising they were willing to accept the reduction.

Anyone else having any issues with requesting reductions ?

Hitting head off brick wall !

It is a request from the tenant to reduce on the grounds of hardship.  My approach would be to send a Financial Statement on behalf of the tenant to evidence hardship, and then follow this up with a phone call to insist a Decision Maker looks at it and makes a decision.

Thanks Sarah

Hi Ali

I’ve got virtually the same situation. Did you get this resolved?

In terms of the guidance, which is linked in another thread I think, the process has to involve a call back to the customer to discuss the issue.

In one case I am dealing with UC have refused to make that call back to me and the customer (who is vulnerable) has said she hasn’t received the call back.

In another case the customer has telephoned and simply been refused the reduction to 10% even though the social landlord is in agreement.

I have yet to try to resolve these as too busy trying to resolve other UC issues .......

Hello

I escalated my cases and they were contacted by the UC service centre and costs were reduced.

In another case I had the Service Centre requesting how much board did a non-dep pay as that would be deducted off of tenants UC payment !!