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FAQ for Landlords

Which landlords are affected by Local Housing Allowance?

Local Housing Allowance (LHA) affects any landlord who enters into a deregulated private tenancy agreement with a person awarded Housing Benefit. By deregulated we mean entered into since 1989 and not covered by one of the exceptions listed below.

Who is not affected by Local Housing Allowance?
LHA does not affect:

local authority landlords who let to council tenants
tenancies with registered social landlords
protected cases, such as supported housing provided by certain local authorities, social landlords, charities and voluntary organisations
tenancies which are excluded from current rent restrictions
tenancies in caravans, houseboats and hostels
tenancies where the rent officer decides that a substantial part of the rent is for board and attendance, such as hotel accommodation.

How does Local Housing Allowance affect landlords?
The only change for most landlords is that LHA will be paid to the tenant. The tenant will be responsible for paying their rent to the landlord.

In recognition of the risk that some tenants may struggle with the responsibility of paying their rent, safeguards will be put in place. Benefit can still be paid directly to the landlord if we consider that the tenant is likely to have difficulty managing their own affairs. This is called vulnerability. Examples of this could include:

tenants with a learning disorder or a drug or alcohol problem that would mean they may have problems managing a budget.
if they think the tenant is unlikely to use their LHA to pay their rent. This could be if we know that the tenant has consistently failed to pay their rent in the past
if the tenant has built up rent arrears of eight weeks or more and payment direct to the landlord has been implemented (under current Housing Benefit regulations), the council can decide to continue making payments direct to the landlord after the arrears have fallen below eight weeks
if the tenant is having deductions from their Income Support or Jobseekers Allowance to pay off rent arrears.

These are just some examples.

The full safeguard policy is available here. Please contact us if you need any further information.

To implement any of these safeguards, we must have documented evidence.

You can download an application for payment direct to landlord here.

Payment direct to landlords

The regulations were changed from 1 April 2011, to give greater discretion to pay landlords or agents direct. This is in response to the changes to LHA and concerns aired by landlords about payments to tenants.

This change is designed by the DWP to encourage landlords to set or reduce rents at renewal at or below the relevant LHA rate. The law now says we can consider, at our discretion, to pay a landlord or agent, where to do so would secure or protect a tenancy agreement. If the new rent is deemed to be at a satisfactory level and a written agreement between the landlord and tenant reflecting the new rent and terms of the tenancy has been received, future payments of benefit can be made directly to the landlord. Evidence will also be considered from The Homelessness Prevention Team or Housing Advice if the tenant has been forced to seek guidance on the matter.

Once a decision has been made to pay a landlord direct, under the circumstances described above, both the customer and landlord need to be aware that direct payments are conditional on the rent being kept at an affordable level whilst the tenant is resident at the property. If notified of a change of circumstances, such as a rent increase, in the future it is at the discretion of the local authority to review whether direct landlord payments should still apply. Requests will be considered on a case by case basis.

Further information
You can download the leaflet information for landlords here.

If you have any queries on the Local Housing Allowance, you can email

benefits@broxbourne.gov.uk or telephone 01992 785555

You can also visit the website for LHADirect and The Financial Services Authority for further information.