Claims by the new Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) minister of state Stephen Timms that the transfer of remaining housing benefit claimants to Universal Credit is being done ‘as smoothly as possible’ have been questioned by a leading expert.

Bill Irvine (pictured), whose specialises in helping private landlords with tenants on benefits, says Timms appears to unaware of the huge challenges facing both tenants on benefits and their private landlords when dealing with the DWP.

When migrating from housing benefit to Universal Credit, tenants must make a fresh claim online but, says Irvine, often tenants don’t have access to computers or appropriate mobile phones to make the application.

“Despite landlords helping them do this, it’s often the case that they don’t have the identification documents required by the online process to prove who they are, and 20% of tenants who apply fall at this hurdle,” he says. “While this is all going on they’ve lost three or more weeks of benefits.”

The other problem for landlords is that while housing benefit used to be paid direct to tenants’ landlords, the DWP is insisting that their new Universal Credit is paid direct to the tenant, including the housing element.

Arrears

“The temptation for tenants is to spend this on themselves and not pass it on to their landlord, so because it takes two months to get DWP to transfer payment once direct to the landlord, arrears build up,” says Irvine.

While the DWP has always been keen to try and teach tenants financially independence by giving them the Universal Credit housing element direct, the reality is many just spend it.

“The DWP’s solution is to enable landlords to have money deducted from the tenant’s payments going forward usually at around £80 a month, but means it can take a year-and-a-half to have the arrears cleared,” says Irvine.

No help

“Also, the DWP won’t help tenants apply for Universal Credit – they say it’s not their job to assist or advise tenants, and that they just ‘administer’ the system, which means landlords, friends and family often have to step in and help.

“Citizens Advice is there to help, but it will only help once and that’s over the telephone which, when dealing with a complicated application process, doesn’t help much.”

Timms told MPs that “the DWP has processes in place within Universal Credit to help reduce hardship, debt and risk of eviction” and that his department has for some time now given those transferring a two-week benefits run-on to help them.