4. Mr A complains that the DWP failed to pay him the correct amount of rent through an Alternative Payment Arrangement (APA) since August 2021.
5. He says this left him financially disadvantaged due to being underpaid rent for a number of months. He says this has been a frustrating and difficult experience for him to try and resolve.
6. He would like DWP to pay the outstanding arrears it would have had the APA been processed properly and also pay compensation.
7. When a person’s Universal Credit (UC) includes housing element, they may be able to apply for this aspect to be paid directly to their landlord via an APA. Where a customer requests an APA, they can also ask for a Managed Payment to Landlord (MPTL). This can be considered where there are rent arrears totalling more than two month’s rent or where the rent has been continuously underpaid for more than two months resulting in arrears of at least one month’s rent.
8. Local Housing Allowance (LHA) is applied to calculate the maximum amount of benefit that can be paid to a renting tenant. LHA is based on a number of factors including how many bedrooms are in the house, what benefit that person may receive, or if there are any children under the age of five in the house as well. This means that a person’s UC may not cover the full amount of their rent.
9. In August 2021, Mr A’s tenant confirmed to DWP that she had moved into the property and Universal Credit confirmed a monthly rent of £1,240. LHA was not applied at that time owing to the reported circumstances of the tenant.
10. In October, both Mr A and his tenant applied for an MPTL be put in place. This amount could be paid from mid-November following the initial one-month assessment period.
11. Mr A received his first payment of £1,240 on 18 November. On 18 December he received £1,150.01 – this was because LHA rates had now been applied following a change in circumstances reported by the tenant.
12. In January 2022, Mr A again received a payment of £1,150.01 due to the application of LHA rates.
13. On 24 January, DWP called Mr A following a report from the tenant about the amount of rent owed. Mr A advised he had not been receiving the correct amount of rent up to that point.
14. In February, Mr A once again received a payment of £1,150.01. In the meantime he had told DWP that his tenant’s rent had increased.
15. On 22 February, the MPTL was cancelled. Due to GDPR, DWP was unable to share the reasons why this happened but should have notified Mr A of the cancellation – records show that did not occur until March when he called for update.
16. Mr A reported that his tenant had left the property without notice on 1 June.
17. Following several unsuccessful attempts to recover rent arrears via third party deductions due to rejected applications, Mr A complained. DWP did not uphold his complaint.
18. Mr A later complained to ICE. i It did not uphold Mr A’s complaint. It advised that it was satisfied DWP had applied LHA rates correctly during the process and it had paid him the appropriate amount of rent via the MPTL. it said any shortfall between the amounts paid by MPTL and the amount owed was his tenant’s responsibility to make up.
21. In cases where a second-tier complaint handler (such as ICE) has already considered the complaint, our general approach is to first consider whether it carried out a fair and thorough investigation. This is to avoid repeating work that has already been carried out robustly. If we decide the second-tier investigation was inadequate then we will generally investigate further. If we conclude that the investigation was appropriate then we will generally take no further action.
22. We discussed Mr A’s unhappiness with the ICE report with him. He explained that he believed ICE had focused on the wrong period of time when considering his complaint. Paragraph 37 of ICE’s decision referred to November and December 2021 when LHA rates were applied and the rent paid via the MPTL was lower. Mr L has explained that he is not and has never been complaining about this period of time – his complaint is regarding the months prior to this (August to October) and beyond (January 2022).
23. Our Standards set out how we expect an organisation to handle complaints. They state that public bodies should take a thorough, proportionate, and balanced look into the issues before giving fair and open answers based on the facts.
24. As we can see in the records, an MPTL was not requested until October and, following the one month assessment period, the first payment simply could not be made until the following month. These payments continued until they stopped after February 2022 when the MPTL was stopped. The reason the ICE report focuses on these months is that these were the initial two out of four months where the MPTL was active. The reason ICE did not refer to any prior months is because, as above, there was no MPTL at that time.
25. ICE correctly told Mr A the rent was a contractual agreement made between Mr A and his tenant. Whilst DWP was able to pay a certain amount during this period via an MPTL, any shortfall in rent during that time was not DWP’s responsibility to make up but his tenant’s.
26. Whilst ICE has acknowledged aspects of DWP’s service that were poor, these did not have relevance to the complaint Mr A has brought – his financial disadvantage was not as a result of DWP’s actions but rather due to his tenant not making up any shortfall between the housing benefit total and the due rent.
27. We know this has been a difficult time for Mr A and to have echoed the ICE decision will be disappointing for him. We understand that he has pursued this for some time now and he remains financially disadvantaged by his tenant. We are sorry that this proved to be the case and acknowledge the ongoing difficulties and frustration this caused him.
1. We have carefully considered Mr A’s complaint. We have, for the reasons we shall go on to detail, decided to take no further action.
2. The Independent Case Examiner (ICE) has already completed an appropriate investigation into Mr A’s concerns. Having reviewed the process ICE followed during and Mr A’s unhappiness with it, we have decided against repeating that investigation.
3. We understand this has been a difficult and frustrating experience for Mr A. We know he believes DWP’s actions financially disadvantaged him as well as being very frustrating to deal with. It was clearly incredibly unfortunate that he did not any rent during the latter part of the tenant’s stay and that she left his property without notice.