{"id":962,"date":"2013-06-28T13:22:02","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T13:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/?p=962"},"modified":"2013-06-28T13:22:02","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T13:22:02","slug":"government-confirms-direct-payment-guarantee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/government-confirms-direct-payment-guarantee.html","title":{"rendered":"Government Confirms Direct Payment Guarantee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since the government first introduced the notion of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/video.lha_tenants.html#watch-demo-anchor\">housing benefit<\/a><br \/>\npayments being made directly to tenants instead of landlords, many<br \/>\nsocial landlords have been concerned about the prospect of rent<br \/>\narrears building up. Most believe this would happen as a result of<br \/>\nvulnerable tenants finding it impossible to manage their finances.<\/p>\n<p>In an attempt to sooth landlord concerns, Lord Freud, minister for<br \/>\nwelfare reform, has clarified things by stating that any tenant who<br \/>\nfalls behind more than two months with their rent payments will have<br \/>\ntheir direct payments suspended. Once a tenant has paid off their<br \/>\narrears, direct payments would resume once again. Landlords would<br \/>\nhopefully recover their money within nine months.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lord Freud Comments<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Speaking to delegates at the Chartered Institute of Housing&#8217;s annual<br \/>\nconference, Lord Freud spelled out the measures the government would<br \/>\nput in place to try and help tenants if they fall behind after one<br \/>\nmonth of direct payments:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Options at this point could include a reassessment of an<br \/>\nindividual&#8217;s financial capability, a possible move to managed<br \/>\npayments, or possibly extra support to get the individual on the<br \/>\nright track to prevent the accumulation of further arrears.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Government is Confident Tenants Will Pay<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Despite scepticism from social landlords, the government is convinced<br \/>\nthat the majority of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/video.lha_tenants.html#watch-demo-anchor\">housing benefit tenants<\/a> will be able to manage<br \/>\ntheir finances and pay their rent on time. They suggest that only<br \/>\nabout 20% of tenants could fall into difficulties. Of course, whether<br \/>\nthis estimate is proven to be correct remains to be seen, as the<br \/>\ndirect payment scheme has yet to be rolled out nationwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since the government first introduced the notion of housing benefit payments being made directly to tenants instead of landlords, many social landlords have been concerned about the prospect of rent arrears building up. Most believe this would happen as a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/government-confirms-direct-payment-guarantee.html\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=962"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":964,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions\/964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.propertyportfoliosoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}