How will you pay my housing benefit
Normally, we will pay your Housing Benefit into your bank account once every 4 weeks. How we pay can be different depending on who you rent your home from.
We can pay your Housing benefit to your landlord once every 4 weeks if we decide it’s in your best interest to do so.
Council tenants
We pay your housing benefit award straight to your rent account, normally weekly and in advance.
Housing Association tenants
We can pay your housing benefit into your bank account every four weeks.
Alternatively, we can pay your benefit straight to your landlord every four weeks:
- If you ask us to, or
- If you owe eight weeks or more in rent, or
- If we decide it’s in your best interests to do so
Private tenants
We will usually pay your housing benefit into your bank account every four weeks.
We can pay your benefit straight to your landlord every four weeks:
- If you owe eight weeks or more in rent, or
- If we decide it’s in your best interests to do so
When we can pay your landlord direct
- If you rent from a private landlord, we’ll normally pay housing benefit directly to you.
- If you are more than eight weeks in arrears with your rent we will pay your landlord direct.
- If you have moved out of your property and still owe rent, we will pay your final payment direct to your landlord.
Sometimes we can make payments direct to your landlord if we think making payments to you will cause you serious financial problems.
Use our form to ask us to pay your landlord direct
Ask us to pay your landlord direct
If we decide we can make payments direct to your landlord, we may review this decision from time to time. This is just to check if this is still the right option for you.
