Tenants from the council/DWP not paying rent?

Hi. I’ve had similar situations. Contact DWP / universal credit in writing declaring the rent arrears and asking for the rent to be paid directly to you, the tenants may have said they are paying you and have no arrears. Include all names on the agreement as the claim may have changed to a partner. Provide proof for them, showing arrears.
The local authority will not help you or cooperate with you as the tenant is their “client”, not you, but you can ask if you have a council tax liability at the property? If you do not, they are still registered as living there. We’ve had tenants who are moving and fancy a few months free overlap to get the new place ready. The council won’t tell you if your tenants have left, even if they are aware.
I would start a section eight as soon as you can, if you haven’t already, join a landlord organisation such as the NRLA. They will guide you through the process.
Sadly nobody is on your side and often officialdom acts only for tenants, not in any moral way.
Best of luck.

Reply to the comment left by Matthew Jude at 05/08/2026 – 11:36
I had a similar problem. O rent for 6 months. On contacting Universal Credit the reply was they would not send her rent direct as she , the tenant had means to pay herself.
Two section 8 s later no rent
18 months later after money wasted on a debt collector, she vanished taking the keys, leaving her stuff in the property.
I obtained a court order to evict her
She vanished never paid rent did not appear in court and I still had to issue a TORT to be able to dispose of her abandoned belongings, which I did again at my expense. She had trashed the property.
The whole lot set me back 15 k

Quite simple. Fill out a uc47 form and send it to universal credit. Within a month the payments will be sent to you direct. I have about 30 tenants on u/c. Works every time. Is a great business model, my arrears are always lower with that side of my business

Reply to the comment left by Noel Greene at 05/08/2026 – 16:51
I am afraid it is not always “quite simple” to complete the Universal Credit direct-payment form and receive payment within a month. My recent experience has been completely different.
I currently have three tenants for whom I have repeatedly submitted online applications for direct rent payments and rent-arrears deductions. The present position is:
• one tenant owes £4,950, equal to three months’ rent;
• another owes £8,100, equal to six months’ rent; and
• the third owes £5,950, equivalent to nearly four months’ rent.
Direct-payment arrangements for two of these tenants were confirmed as approved by Universal Credit on 2 June 2026. Despite this, I have not received the expected rent in respect of two of the tenants, and one payment cannot be identified because it carries only my creditor reference number.
I submitted the forms repeatedly, including fresh applications for all three tenants on 23 July. The system provided no confirmation email, submission receipt or reference number. When I telephoned Universal Credit, I was told that the forms had not been received.
I therefore visited two Jobcentres with printed copies and asked for them to be uploaded to the relevant claims. One Jobcentre had previously done this for me after a case manager directed me there and explained that this service was available where documents could not be submitted online. However, on this occasion, both offices said that they did not upload documents for landlords. I was therefore left with approved arrangements, substantial rent arrears and no effective means of ensuring that the applications reached the correct Universal Credit team.
There is also a serious problem with payment references. On the online forms, I entered each tenant’s name as the bank-payment reference. Nevertheless, DWP used my general creditor reference for payments relating to different tenants. That number identifies me as the landlord, not the tenant. It is therefore impossible to tell from my bank statement which tenant or property a payment relates to, particularly as I have several tenants receiving Universal Credit.
In one case, DWP correctly retained the tenant-specific reference, proving that this can be done. In other cases, it replaced the tenant’s name with my creditor number. I have received payments over many months that I could not safely allocate to any rent account, and even DWP’s Third Party Payments team said that the payments had not been made through its system. I eventually had to contact a DWP Partnership Manager simply to trace some of them.
The general Universal Credit helpline usually tells me to ask the tenant. That is no answer where the problem is that DWP has paid money into my account without identifying which tenant it is for, or where an approved direct-payment arrangement has apparently produced no identifiable payment.
To add insult to injury, I have now applied for the tenants to be evicted, but the court process is extremely slow. In one case, I must wait another month before I can even apply to the court. During all this time, the arrears continue to increase while the tenants remain in the properties.
I have also tried to complain online and have contacted my MP because I am running out of routes to pursue.
The online form is effectively useless where DWP later says that it was never received. Every application should generate an immediate receipt and case reference. Landlords should have a functioning route through which to upload evidence, and every payment should carry the claimant’s name or another unique tenant-specific reference, rather than merely the landlord’s creditor number.
Therefore, while the system may work smoothly in some cases, it certainly does not “work every time”. In my three current cases, the arrears have reached three months, six months and nearly four months respectively, despite repeated applications and two arrangements having already been approved.

Reply to the comment left by Clint at 05/08/2026 – 19:05
I don’t understand why did you take them in the first place?

Reply to the comment left by Noel Greene at 05/08/2026 – 16:51
You’re behind the times . The UC47 form was withdrawn in 2020

The OP needs to use this link now
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-landlord-request-for-a-managed-payment-or-rent-arrears-deduction

And it doesn’t work every time but for me it does work the majority of the time

Reply to the comment left by wanda wang at 05/08/2026 – 21:47
Housing UC tenants is not for everyone. Its a niche market . But if done well the rewards are very lucrative . I get 1500 pcm for a 4 bed for which I would be lucky to get £1000 for from a private tenant Housing emergency temporary tenants from the council is even more lucrative . Its gov money so its always there in effect . The downside is the GoV are not very good at paperwork so you are often owed money by them – but if you are patient you get it in the end . Just keep a good cash reserve.

Reply to the comment left by wanda wang at 05/08/2026 – 21:47
Good question? I have been renting to Universal Credit claimants for many years, and the majority have paid their rent. Where a tenant failed to pay, I accepted that I might lose two months’ rent before direct payments are put in place.

However, over the past year or so, Universal Credit appears to have become increasingly unaccountable. Decisions are delayed, mistakes go unresolved, and officers seem able to act without any meaningful responsibility or consequences.

You don’t need them to talk to you. Apply to DWP yourself for a Managed Payment to Landlord, using the Apply for a Direct Rent Payment service on
gov.uk. The old UC47 form went in 2020. Two months of arrears is the normal trigger and you’re there now, so get it in today.

Their privacy doesn’t stop you applying. It only stops DWP telling you about their claim.

Worth being clear on the other route too, because it moved. Ground 8 now needs three months’ arrears, not two, and four weeks’ notice, and you still need to be at three months on the day of the hearing.

Some mortgage lenders insist on not renting out property to people on benefits; the same applies when you buy building insurance for tenanted property.
But the govenrment guidline suggest, the landlord should not discriminate when selecting the tenants.
How do you manage this criterion?