Tenants on Universal Credit can now use a new online system that allows rent payments to be paid directly to Private Rented Sector (PRS) landlords.
At the moment, it takes around three weeks to process a privately rented tenant using the Alternative Payment Arrangement (APA), which sends rents straight to landlords.
The new automated online system replaces the two existing UC47 paper forms for APA and cuts the processing time down to just two hours, reports Express.co.uk.
Normally, the housing element of Universal Credit is paid into the claimant's bank account, once or twice a month in Scotland, along with the rest of their benefits payment.
It is then the responsibility of the claimant to pay their landlord on time, but some find it hard to budget and can end up in rent arrears.
The new online system has been rolled out nationally and should help reduce the number of tenants in debt with their landlords.
Sherrelle Collman Managing Director of Caridon Landlord Solutions, part of Caridon Group, which worked alongside the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to pilot the new system from October 2018, said: “This is excellent news for landlords and tenants, as well as all those new claimants who have recently been forced to sign up to Universal Credit due to Covid-19.
"For those struggling to manage their finances, it provides a much simpler route for tenants and landlords to request that the housing element of Universal Credit is paid directly to their landlord.
"The old paper forms, which required landlords to fill out, scan and email or post back, were not only time consuming but also took weeks to process, sometimes getting lost along the way with rent arrears simultaneously mounting up.”
The ‘Apply for direct rent payments’ service is now live on the Gov.uk website here.
