Authority to Act

I have recently heard from a seminar i attended that DWP state there is no provision in the regulations for UC to allow any landlord to act on behalf of their tenants ? as a high proportion of RSL’s and Housing Association’s employ Welfare Rights Adviser’s this would impact on them immensely . I have never heard anything so absurd , surely this woulde be a breach of human rights and would prevent them from having the right to a fair hearing, if required to appeal to a first tier or upper tier tribunal , the person who told me was a representative of the National Federation for housing who said they was still in dialogue with the DWP but wasnt confident of any leway , has anyone else heard   about such a draconian act ? im about to scan through the regs but hoping somone could save me the boredom

Colin Hannon

Do you mean that there will be something in the regs to stop landlords acting on behalf of tenants?

There’s nothing in any current regs that give anyone specific representational rights.

perhaps someone is getting confused? I can’t see how they would be able to restrict the type of person who could act on a claimant’s behalf.

I don’t think that landlords will be notified of changes in claimants UC, as they currently are with HB

Yes I agree there must be some confusion here. It could be that someone doesn’t fully understand the implications of appeal rights for landlords. The rights of landlords to appeal (independently of the hb claimant) are fairly limited. Most of it revolves around overpayment recoveries direct from the landlord (as payee of the HB). All this will effectively disappear when housing costs are paid to claimants in the UC. I know there will be schemes to cover payments to L/Ls in exceptional cases - but I am betting they will have be really exceptional to count.

There has never been any restriction on acting as an authorised representative of an appellant. The claimant / appellant can choose anyone they wish.