The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has today awarded a £38 million contract to modernise and grow the credit union industry.
The Association of British Credit Unions (ABCUL) is the successful bidder to deliver the DWP’s project, which is designed to help meet the growing demand for modern banking products for people on low incomes.
Landlords are reminded that as from this week, local authorities now have the discretion to charge full Council Tax on empty properties.
The change affect properties that until now have been given automatic exemptions and discounts, including furnished and unfurnished properties for rent.
The bedroom tax will cost Northern Ireland more to implement than it will save in housing benefit, new figures have revealed.
According to a joint study by the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations (NIFHA) and the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), though the bedroom tax aims to cut the benefits bill by £17m, it will cost £21m to implement.
The government has underestimated the combined impact of three different benefit cuts coming into effect at once, a think tank has claimed.
The New Policy Institute today publishes a report looking at the impact of the bedroom tax, council tax benefit changes and the overall benefit cap.
A letting agent who failed to protect tenants’ deposits and did not pass rent on to landlords has been jailed. The out-of-pocket victims have been warned they are unlikely to get a penny of their money back.
Paul Collins, 47, who ran Thomas and Company Rentals in Milton Keynes, was sentenced to ten months in prison after pleading guilty to 25 counts of fraud.
A new study has revealed that more than half (56 percent) of housing associations and almost a third (30 percent) of councils are worried that their tenants still know hardly anything about the government's welfare changes.
The joint research by the Chartered Institute of Housing South West (CIH SW) and the National Housing Federation (NHF) found that of all the reforms, social landlords expect direct payments to have the biggest impact on their tenants.
Shelter is running a campaign for people to sign an online petition urging more lenders to lend to buy-to-let landlords who take benefits tenants.
Recently, Nationwide and Lloyds announced that they would allow their landlord borrowers to accept tenants on Local Housing Allowance.
Crisis has called on the government to urgently reverse cuts made to housing benefit as new figures reveal a 10 percent rise in homelessness since 2011.
And the official statistics, released by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), show that the number of households accepted as homeless and owed the main homelessness duty over the last two years has risen by 26 percent.
Millions of pounds of funding announced by the Department for Work and Pensions for the creation of budgeting accounts to help benefit claimants adapt to the new Universal Credit regime may not be available after all following intervention from the Treasury.
Last year the DWP announced a £145 million fund to encourage financial services companies to develop new basic banking facilities such as jam jar accounts.
The London Assembly has called on the Mayor to launch an "urgent review" of the potential impact on London of the Government’s plans to change the way housing benefits are paid, amid fears that it could lead to an increase in rent arrears and damage the building of new affordable housing.
Assembly Members backed a motion urging Boris Johnson to press the Government for assurances that the introduction of the new Universal Credit – whereby rent would be paid to tenants instead of directly to landlords – would not exacerbate London’s housing crisis.