The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has just issued a statement that during April it had suspended Universal Credit rent arrears payments direct to landlords, because of the pandemic.

Previously all third party deductions for payment arrears were taken from Universal Credit claimants monies and paid direct, have been suspended until May 10th.

There has been a seismic surge in new Universal Credit claimants due to the pandemic’s pummelling of the economy.

The huge surge in the past few weeks of new UC claimants taken on board was more than 1.4 million over the past few weeks which will continue to increase daily; this has coincided with the government’s action of suspending evictions until June.

A spokesperson for the DWP said: “We have received an unprecedented number of new benefit claims and have streamlined our operations to make sure people get the support they need during this time.

“As part of this, we have temporarily paused third-party deductions from [Universal Credit] – these will recommence on 10 May.

“We are in the process of explaining the changes to claimants via their online journal and to third parties, including housing providers who collect arrears via this method.”

Richard Merrick of PIMS, said: “It is quite unlikely that the government will give the go ahead to allow evictions to start again in June as discussing sport seems very much in the forefront, and of course landlords going out of business will not affect the general public’s well being.”

Blog Post from PIMS

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