UC Payments being frozen

I have heard that if a claimant makes a request for alternative payment arrangements ( such as paying the landlord direct or changing the frequency of payments) then all payment will be frozen for a period of up to 28 days while UC decide if they can accede to the request.

Does anyone have any experience of this - I couldn’t find anything to confirm or deny it in CPAG.

If this is the case then this would obviously have an impact on when such requests should be made, perhaps they should only be done in the first couple of days of an assessment period so that a decision can be made before the end of the assessment period?

Any information gratefully received

Hi
When a claimant requests an APA or more frequent payments, this creates a “Create APA to-do” on the agent side which is a payment blocker.
Generally requesting this within the last 7days of assessment period will trigger the block as the request usually needs to go to a DM/WC to decide if the claimant meets the criteria.
However CMs have the ability to close these and make manual payments if required.

Thanks for that info, how easy is it to get a ‘manual’ payment made?

down to the CM as far as I know, I was on working for the dark side in the specialist housing team of UC, so haven’t requested one from this side.

message in journal may help