Speaking today at the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) conference in Harrogate, he said the Government's starting position was to pay the new credit directly to tenants but that "provision will be made to pay it directly to social landlords".
The planned Universal Credit – announced last October – will replace six income related work-based benefits with a single payment system and will be phased in from 2013.
Read the full article here Lord Freud: 'facility to pay landlords directly' to be retained in Universal Credit
NetRent Comment
Whilst this is welcome news the fact remains that the vast majority of landlords and an increasing number of tenants would rather have rents paid direct without having to go through hoops to achieve it.
More and more landlords are refusing to take tenants on benefits and the number of benefit tenants in arrears is rising rapidly. Surely it is not beyond the wit of the Government to see that the current system is not working and that an immediate return to direct payments is the only way to resolve this growing problem.
