Landlords

 Responsibilities and Duties of landlords receiving housing benefit

Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council Works hard to maintain good relationships with its external partners including local and social landlords.

As a landlord receiving Housing Benefit please take note of the duties and responsibilities required of you:

•  We ask that when you contact us you have your reference number available; this will save both you and us time.
•  We will work with you to help your tenant's claim. Please provide information we request on time to enable us to make payments on time.
•  Please notify us immediately if you become aware that your tenant has had a change in circumstances.. If you notify us of a change in circumstances that subsequently becomes a fraudulent overpayment we will not recover that overpayment from you.
•  We ask that you notify us of rent increases as soon as possible
•  We ask that any overpayments paid to you be repaid promptly.
•  If tenants are more than eight weeks in arrears and the tenant does not dispute this, we will pay the Housing Benefit direct to the landlords in accordance with the regulations. If there is a dispute we will ask for satisfactory proof of the arrears.
•  Where we can, we will make payments on account in accordance with the regulations.
•  We will send a Statement of Overpayments detailing each overpayment a Landlord has, who it is for and the period, twice a year.
•  We will send a schedule for each payment we make this will explain whom the payment is for, their address and the period the payment covers.
• Should you wish to attend the yearly forum held for Landlord in the area, please contact us.