If you are a landlord wishing to rent out property, you may have tenants entitled to help from their Council towards paying their rent.

It is possible for a Landlord to receive regular payment by cheque of a tenant’s Housing Benefit or they can request for it to be paid by BACS which will be included in the claim form.

You will be sent notification letters confirming the amount of benefit your tenant is entitled to, but we cannot discuss with you how this has been calculated. That information is confidential to the tenant. Also we cannot discuss any claim for Housing Benefit with the landlord unless the tenant has given their permission.

You will need to provide us with the following:

• Accurate information about the tenancy details including the start date
• Rent charged and any services provided
• Prompt information regarding tenants moving out
• Recognition by the landlord that the tenancy agreement is with the tenant. If there are difficulties with payment of rent, the landlord's first point of contact is the tenant
• Prompt repayment of overpaid Housing Benefit.

When you will be paid?

• Payments are made every 4 weeks in arrears
• When you have more than one tenant, only one cheque is sent and a schedule listing the tenants and amounts concerned is issued
• When a new claim is made by the tenant, the first payment may be a payment on account if the tenant has not provided all the information required to process the claim. You will be notified if this is the case.

What to do if you have been overpaid

As a Landlord receiving direct payments, you will be required to repay any benefits you have received for periods after the tenant leaves your property.

You may also be asked to repay benefit if we need to reassess the tenant’s claim and either the claim is cancelled or the amount of benefit entitlement is reduced as a result.

If we are paying you direct in respect of other tenants we will recover your overpayments from these future payments. If we do this you must credit the tenants’ rent accounts with the full amount of benefit that would have been paid out. You cannot treat the shortfall as arrears if the tenant whose benefit is being withheld was not involved in the overpayment being recovered.

If we are unable to recover by reducing your future cheques we will send you an invoice to pay your overpayment.

Can landlords appeal against a decision?

Appeals concerning a tenant’s benefit entitlement, including where their weekly amount is reduced to cover an overpayment, are a matter between the Council and the tenant only.

The landlord can either ask us to review our decision about an overpayment, or they can make an appeal against it. Reviews are carried out internally within Derby Benefits, whereas the independent Appeals Service (TAS) considers appeals. All requests for reviews and appeals must be made in writing to Derby Benefits, within one month of the landlord first being told about an overpayment.

The landlord can challenge the fact that there has been an overpayment, the amount of it and also the decision about who is responsible for it; but may not challenge how the Council intends to recover the overpayment from them.

If a request for a review or an appeal is received outside the one-month time limit, the landlord needs to be able to show good cause for the challenge being made late before we can reconsider the case.

Housing Benefit - Online Service for Landlords with Multiple Properties 

From July 2008 we will be running a pilot scheme aimed at delivering housing benefit information to landlords through a new online service. The service is aimed at landlords with multiple properties and tenants. The online service covers properties in Derby and provides round the clock secure access to details of all your Housing Benefit award and payment information as well as invoice details for any overpayments.

Initially, we are piloting the service to a limited number of Landlords with a view to making it generally available to landlords across the city. Some of the city's major landlords are already working with the new service so if you would like to be included in the pilot scheme or would simply like a bit more information please email us at:

benefits.enquiries@derby.gov.uk