Delayed Payment

When finding a tenant for his other property, it goes without saying that a landlord ideally wants somebody who can pay on time. However one of the main disadvantages of accepting housing benefit for a landlord is that the payments come in arrears. This means that the tenant lives at the property for four weeks, then the landlord gets paid four weeks rent.

To make matters worse, the first payment is usually delayed for a number of weeks while the claim gets processed in the system. Admittedly once payments start, they are regular and often people on benefits can be better payers than working tenants. However this is only the case if the tenant’s benefit claim is going well, but if it has any problems, it also means problems for the landlord.

Problems with a Benefits Claim

If the tenant has any issue that affects his or her benefit claim, it will have a knock-on effect to the housing benefit which is likely to be delayed. It can take up to several weeks to get late rent off the council, and they may even decide the tenant’s benefit claim should be suspended for a short time. This can happen for any number of reasons, for example failure to turn up for an important appointment might get a claim suspended for between two weeks to a month.

Then a landlord would need to get the payment from that set period from the tenant direct. Obviously someone claiming benefits that have recently been suspended for a while, would be unlikely to have money for rent so payments for that period would either have to be overlooked, or notice for eviction given.

Deposits

When accepting a new person as tenant, it is customary for a bond or security deposit to be paid to a landlord, usually the equivalent of a month’s rent in advance. If a landlord does not specify ‘No DSS’ when advertising a vacancy, a lot of applicants will apply who are unemployed and maybe cannot cover the price of the bond.