Court judgment, costs and TPDs

I don’t like to pester Timothy Seaside with too many DMs, and I don’t want to miss out on hearing the expert opinion of others, so I’ll go with a public thread for this one.

Threshold requirement for UC third party deductions is that the claimant is in debt “for” rent etc.  The question I have is: suppose the landlord has a court judgment that includes costs, and the debt has now been reduced to an amount that is less than the costs.  Is the TPD threshold still met?  Is the judgment, rather like UC itself, a smoothie and not a fruit salad?  Or does the judgment consist of separate amounts and, if so, are they paid off in any particular order?  If the debt has reduced to an amount below the costs, would the consequence of default still potentially be eviction?

Many thanks for any contributions

The rent arrears and costs are separate.

Assuming we are dealing with a suspended possession order, there will be provision for the defendant to make payment according to a schedule towards the global sum, but invariably this will be apportioned to rent first. The landlord should have a separate court costs account.

You could still end up facing a warrant of eviction for failing to keep to the payment schedule after the principal rent arrears are paid off, because you are still non-compliant with the terms on which possession was suspended.

You can find a copy of the template suspended possession order here which might give you a better idea of what I mean:
http://wbus.westlaw.co.uk/forms/pdf/cpf02084.pdf

Brilliant, thanks Elliot.

But in practice…

It’s relatively easy to get a TPD set up through the landlord portal or the general online form but getting one stopped is a bit hit and miss. UC obviously don’t have access to the rent account, and there’s no way to apply to stop a TPD via the landlord portal. So it generally comes down to a combination of emails to UC and the tenant putting notes on their journal and taking rent statements to the JCP. I suppose it is probably the same with deductions from legacy benefits (although they are harder to set up, and the amounts are much smaller).

Two other issues are that; UC will usually only agree to start a TPD for rent arrears if the arrears equate to at least two months’ rent, and; UC seem to have gone from ignoring the rule (Para 7(6-7) of Sch 6 C&P Regs) on not starting or continuing TPDs for people earning more than the work allowance, to refusing or stopping TPDs for people with any earned income at all (which would arguably be correct for a claimant with no children or LCW because the work allowance would be zero for them).

I’m not sure what the basis for the two month “rule” is - it mirrors the HB rule for direct payment to landlord but is it guidance? It strikes me as wrong that a council tenant could have a TPD for CT debt of £500 but not for rent arrears at the same level - especially as a lot of tenants actually ask for a TPD when their arrears are quite low. Having said that, I am really uncomfortable with the level of TPD for rent arrears - they are too high, and UC don’t seem to apply any reasoning in their decisions about whether to deduct 10% or 20%.

Thanks for the further reply Tim, sorry only just noticed it