How you can help us

Your tenant must tell us if their circumstances change or they change address. However, if you are aware of any changes to the tenant's circumstances that you think may affect their benefit, e.g. they move out, you should let us know immediately. 

You can tell us by email at benefits@barnet.gov.uk, by downloading and sending us a change of circumstances form or by telephoning us.

You can also help us by repaying any overpaid benefit promptly.

We will work with you in the following ways

  • we will action changes of circumstances reported by yourselves promptly
  • we will work with you to help your tenant's claim
  • our application forms allow claimants to agree that you can be told about their claim as well as the payments. We will then give you as much information as we can under the law
  • we can make payments direct to yourself at the claimants request if their claim started before 07 April 2008
  • we can consider paying you the Housing Benefit if you have helped the tenant gain or retain the tenancy by not charging more than the LHA rate   
  • if a payment we make is for more than one claimant, we will send out a schedule showing a breakdown of each claimant and period. This will be sent securely
  • we will give you information on your rights and duties if you receive Housing Benefit payments direct
  • notification letters sent to you will comply with the regulations. Your appeal rights will appear on these letters
  • if tenants are more than 8 weeks in arrears and they do not dispute this, we can pay the Housing Benefit direct to you. If there is any dispute we will ask you for satisfactory proof of the arrears
  • we encourage you to contact us if you are considering evicting your tenant
  • over-payments made to yourselves will be recovered in line with our over-payments policy and procedures
  • we will not seek to recover an over-payment from you if it was the result of fraudulent action by the claimant, unless you had some involvement in the fraud
  • if you report suspicions of fraud, we will refer them to the Corporate Anti-Fraud Team promptly
  • we will seek suggestions and improvements to the service from yourself and involve you in the change
  • we will support the landlords forum and landlords business club by attending when requested and letting you know of changes to Housing Benefit