Complaint - Refusal to Supply Housing Benefit Payments

This form is not suitable for Universal Credit.

When a landlord has a tenant claiming housing benefits, it can be frustrating when the local authority refuses to speak to the landlord about the claim. 

Often, all a landlord wishes to know is whether payment has been made to the tenant. It is not commonly known, but in most cases, a landlord has an absolute right to know if any money payments have been made to the tenant. 

Before using this template, the landlord MUST have issued a request with this template. 

This template is a complaint to the local authority, which must use your specific local authority complaints procedure (usually a specific contact name and address). This is the only option if more than two months have passed since you were sent any refusal to supply the information by the local authority. 

Optionally, we have a proposed judicial review pre-action letter that is slightly more complex but potentially more effective than this complaint letter. If you feel confident enough, it might be worth sending the judicial review and then this one. Send this complaint letter if more than two months have passed since the local authority refused to provide the information because the judicial review has very short and strict time limits. A complaint is less formal. 

The letter is in Rich Text Format (RTF), so it will work on all word processors and can be edited as you see fit. Any [square brackets] require to be replaced with information.