Housing benefit and universal credit information for landlords
Due to an IT issue, our housing complaints email address isn't working. We're expecting to have it back up and running by the end of the week.
If you need to raise a housing complaint in the meantime, please use our housing complaints form.
Rent and service charge balancesIf you have made a payment since Saturday 6 December it may not show up correctly on your account on the Portal or the balance check by text.
Please bear with us while we fix this technical issue, and contact us by email if you need an accurate statement of your account:
- Rent: lh-rent@lewisham.gov.uk
- Temporary accommodation rent: TAincome@lewisham.gov.uk
- Service charges: hos@lewisham.gov.uk
Universal credit
If a tenant needs help to pay their rent and are eligible, usually this means they will apply for universal credit and arrange to pay this to the landlord themselves. Some tenants will have their universal credit housing benefit paid directly to the landlord as a managed payment if they are struggling to pay rent.
If you are a private landlord and your tenant owes more than two month’s rent, you can apply to universal credit to receive a direct payment for a tenant’s housing cost. You can also apply to recover rent arrears from universal credit.
Landlord housing benefit account
Housing Benefit is being replaced by Universal Credit. However some tenants still have housing benefit provided through their local council.
Login or create a landlord account to manage housing benefit payments or inform us of a change in circumstances.
If you don't tell us about a change in circumstances
If we are paying your tenant's housing benefit directly to you and you know about a change in circumstances but don't tell us we can:
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take you to court
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fine you
The amount of the fine will be equal to 30% of the total amount of the benefit we overpaid you. Find out what happens if you don't repay a housing benefit overpayment.