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Alternative Payment Arrangement
Hello,
I have just received an email from a Housing Officer who I am in correspondence with regarding a mutual client about setting up an APA.
Client is in receipt of UC - had an APA set up. APA was stopped - UC cannot confirm why APA was stopped. APA has been requested to be set up again due to rent arrears.
The Housing Officer has just passed on an email to me from UC including the following.
“Please bare in mind they are now paid via the Common Creditor Code so will take approx. 8 weeks to be receive after the payment has been released in March”
Has anyone heard of the Common Creditor Code or has anyone else had any information from UC about as to why APA payments will take eight weeks?
Thanks in advance
That’s interesting, we have also found that APAs are not paid for couple of months after request made and had not got to the bottom of why this was happening..
Hi,
Is that just for the first payment to be processed or every payment takes eight weeks to be received?
Do they mean that payments are being made using the system for deductions for arrears, as described in the third party payments manual?
The manual is not exceptionally clear.
Once payments are set up on the third party payments system, you, the Creditor/Supplier, will normally receive payment every 28 days and will be 28 days in arrears. Creditors will usually expect to receive the first payment for a customer on your next payment schedule within six weeks from the date deductions have commenced.
Those Creditors/Suppliers receiving third party deductions from customers on Universal Credit will receive 12 payments in a calendar year. This is because assessment periods for Universal Credit are calendar monthly so we assess what deductions can be made from Universal Credit 12 times each year at the end of each assessment period. Consequently there will always be one 28 day payment cycle each year that does not align with the assessment of deductions from Universal Credit. When this is will depend on the date of the assessment period for a particular customer and the specific dates that apply to the creditor for a particular debt: the date of the assessment period depends on the date of the claim.”
In full service UC the APA for housing costs is paid to landlords via the third part creditors system which is a schedule every 28 days.
Which means depending on claimant’s own payment date they might have just missed a schedule, so although showing on theirs UC account as paid to landlord, will not actually be sent for another 4 wks. So 11 weeks arrears in some cases through no fault of the claimant.
Social landlords may start avoiding APA and pursue other avenues…..