Landlords responsibilities when receiving direct payments
Where you receive direct payments of Housing Benefit you must let us know immediately if you are aware of any changes in the circumstances of any of your tenants that may affect their benefit entitlement.
For example you need to let us know if your tenant moves out of the property even if they are still liable for the rent at the property.
We expect you to make regular checks to confirm that your tenant is still living at the property where you are receiving Housing Benefit payments.
Do I have to repay overpayments of Housing Benefit?
If you do not agree with our decision to ask you to repay an overpayment you can ask us to look at our decision again. Details will be provided on the overpayment notification letter that we send to you. It is important that you write to us within one calendar month of the date of the notification if you do not agree with our decision.
Where we consider that the overpayment has been caused by fraud and the landlord has not been involved in the fraud we will normally ask the claimant to repay the overpayment, which has resulted from the fraud.