Landlords win power to challenge claims for benefit overpayment

A decision in the Court of Appeal in London means landlords can appeal if they believe a local authority is acting unfairly in trying to claim back a housing benefit overpayment from the landlord rather than a tenant. Some councils have found it easier to reclaim the money from landlords even though the landlord may not be to blame for the overpayment.

When the case brought by Warden Housing Association began in December 2002, 70 landlord appeals were pending, with an average of 3.5 new appeals lodged each week.

Last month's appeal court judgment overturned a ruling by the Social Security Commissioner in July 2002, which appeared to give councils greater discretion in choosing whether to recover overpayments from landlords or tenants and seemed to reduce rights of appeal against council decisions.

Now, a landlord could challenge a decision to recover from them an overpayment that had occurred because a tenant had failed to notify the council about a change in income that would reduce their housing benefit. The landlord could challenge an attempt to recover the overpayment if it had no way of knowing about the change in income.

This is probably one of the most important court cases for landlords for a long time

Carol Clegg, arrears and benefits adviser, Warden Housing Association

Carol Clegg, arrears and benefits adviser at Warden Housing Association, said: "It's a very important case for landlords, probably one of the most important pieces of case law for a long time."

Fola Ogunjobi, policy officer at the National Housing Federation, said: "It will encourage landlords and councils to try to resolve similar cases either through tribunals or negotiation." He said it remained to be seen whether the case could lead to greater arrears if councils started to claim more overpayments from tenants.