Social landlords are causing tenants needless anxiety by taking out possession orders when housing benefit payments are delayed, even when they do not intend to carry out evictions.
The claim was made last week by the Catholic Housing Aid Society, which said that almost one-third of the cases taken to its central London advice centre concern possession orders. Of these, almost 60 per cent involved councils or housing associations.

CHAS' housing advice manager Ian Bottomley said: "We find many cases where the social landlord is taking court action to try to speed up the activities of the housing benefit office. Most of these cases do not aim to evict tenants, but merely to resolve the housing benefit problem."

The charity said that landlords and the government should tackle the delays in the benefit system, rather than "resorting to the traumatic, expensive and often pointless route of repossession".

Last year 30,000 possession orders were granted against council and housing association tenants in England and Wales, a 12 per cent rise over the previous year and the sixth consecutive annual rise.

Education and media officer Sarah Williams said: "Landlords are quick to point out that the number of evictions remains low, but this does not explain or excuse the much higher use of possession orders.

"They cause families intense stress and trauma, and also take up vast amounts of resources, both in the courts and in independent advice services such as our own."