Case Study on UC tenants prospective

The claimant and their landlord approached Caridon Landlord Solutions, seeking resolution to an on-going issue with the tenants Universal Credit claim, the tenant was not in receipt of any payments causing him to incur debt and was also unable to pay his rent.

The claimant was previously in employment until he became ill and his GP stated he was not fit for work.

Seeking advice, he attended Jobcentre Plus to make a claim for assistance, however this claim for benefits was not about to go smoothly.

As the tenant was not fit for work, he should have been advised to claim ESA, however, as a result of the JCP advisor using the claimant’s previous address, which was a care of address to set up the claim he was placed onto Universal Credit and directed down the wrong path.

Had the correct address been used to set up the claim from the offset it would have been identified by the JCP advisor that the claimant lived in the Universal Credit live area he would have been ineligible to satisfy the gateway conditions of entitlement to Universal Credit.

When the claimant was asked if he had any liability at the address (care of address) the tenant answered no, as he had never lived there, due to this he was not awarded Housing Costs causing him to fall into arrears.

The landlords unaware of this made a request for direct payments however the request was never actioned because of the incorrect address placed on the claim.

With our involvement we managed to identify the problems on the claim and get the landlords request for managed payment and backdated to the start of the claim recovering over £5000 for the landlord.

Caridon Landlord Solutions come across cases like this every day of the week and have helped numerous claimants and landlords receive payments they would otherwise lose out on.

If you have a case like this or any other type of LHA/UC issue, please contact us using the form below and a member of our team will be happy to offer you assistance.