Judicial Review Pre Action Refusal to Supply Housing Benefit Payments

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 proposed judicial review pre-action letter, and so is slightly more complex than our complaint letter. 

Only send this letter if you feel comfortable; we wouldn't necessarily recommend it be followed through to a judicial review! IMPORTANT - Judicial review has very short and strict time limits. The legislation requires any judicial review to be done "promptly" after the local authority's decision (in this case, a decision refusing to supply the information). 

If you have gone beyond 1 or 2 months from the decision, there is no point in sending this letter; instead, you can use the less effective complaint letter. 

Please prepare this letter with reference to the pre-action protocol guidance. 

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.