Paying your Housing Benefit

We always pay council tenants' Housing Benefit every week into their rent accounts.

Other tenants normally receive their Housing Benefit, 4-weekly in arrears, in their bank or building society account. We cannot pay Housing Benefit into Post Office accounts.

Tenants can get advice about opening and running and account from any bank or building society. Our leaflet 'Basic Bank Accounts: A Guide' gives information about banks in Newham.

People who cannot open a basic bank account or a credit union account can contact us for assistance.

In the circumstances described below we can pay Housing Benefit to landlords.

Paying Housing Benefit to landlords

We can pay Housing Benefit to a landlord who:

• shows us that their tenant is in rent arrears amounting to 8 or more weeks
• is receiving money from the Department of Works and Pensions to pay off rent arrears

We can also pay benefit direct to landlords when:

• The tenant has moved, rent is outstanding, and when some benefit has yet to be paid

Other rules about paying landlords depend on whether the tenant is affected by the Local Housing Allowance (LHA).

Tenants not affected by the LHA can ask us to pay Housing Benefit to their landlords.

Tenants who are affected by the LHA cannot simply ask us to pay their landlord. But we have discretion to pay landlords in LHA cases if:

• we have previously paid the landlord because there were 8 or more weeks' rent arrears;
• it is improbable the tenant will pay the rent; or
• it is likely the tenant will have difficulty managing their financial affairs.

There is more information in 'Discretionary payments to landlords under the LHA'. We also have a form, 'Paying your landlord', that you can print out and fill in if you think we should be paying your landlord.

We normally pay Housing Benefit to landlords:

• Four-weekly or monthly in arrears
• Directly to their bank accounts

Where we have not previously paid Housing Benefit to a landlord, we will need to send them a form asking for things like bank account details. We need the completed form back before we can pay any Housing Benefit.