Permission to Discuss Housing Benefit Claim with Local Authority

This template is not suitable for Universal Credit.

When a tenant claims housing benefit / local housing allowance, sometimes landlords would like to contact the local authority council and ask how the claim is going. The local authority will always quote the Data Protection Act in an attempt to refuse discussion. 

Our latest tenancy agreements contain a provision to obtain consent for the landlord to discuss a housing benefit claim with the council. 

However, for those who are either using an old tenancy agreement or one that isn't from the Guild of Residential Landlords, this template form can be completed, signed by the tenant and sent to the local authority and provides permission to discuss the claim with them. 

The template is in rich text format (RTF), so it will work on all word processors, including Microsoft Word, and can be changed as you see fit, although there shouldn't be any need to make any changes.