This is where you pay for the time that is coming rather than the time that has passed. This way the rent account does not show in arrears.

This could be for several reasons. If you’re on full Housing Benefit, this is paid to Leeds Federated 4 weekly in arrears. If you’re on Universal Credit, this is paid to Leeds Federated monthly in arrears. This means that your rent account could be in debt for most of the time. We’ll ask you to make a payment to bring your account out of arrears.

It may also be because Housing Benefit doesn’t cover the full amount of your rent and you have what we call a ‘shortfall’.

Get in touch with us as soon as you can. We know it can sometimes be really hard to face up to these things, but the earlier we know, the better the chance of sorting things.

This is a legal document and the first stage of a legal process. It’s a letter giving you notice that we’ll consider applying to court after the enforceable date (usually 28 days) if we haven’t managed to work with you to find a solution to your rent arrears.

Universal Credit is different from Housing Benefit as the expectation is that the housing costs will be paid to the customer (you-the claimant) who then pays the landlord (us-Leeds Federated). However, if you meet this criteria you can ask us to apply for payments direct.

If you fall into 8 weeks of rent arrears, we can also ask for your housing costs to be paid directly to us and for an amount to be deducted from your standard allowance to pay towards your debt. This is to help you keep your home and protect your tenancy.

It’s important that we look at your whole situation and not just the rent. Quite often rent arrears are the sign of other issues such as unclaimed or incorrect benefits, other debts or prioritising the wrong things. By looking at the whole picture we can give you the best advice and support possible and improve the chances of working things out.

We’ll signpost you to independent advice, through agencies such as the Citizens Advice Bureau and Housing Options team at your local Council. If you’re contacted about a court hearing then you really must attend, as your home may be at risk. There’s usually help available on the day of the hearing at the court from an independent housing advisor too. We’ll give you as much information as we can before the hearing and make sure you have copies of all the documents we share with the court.

It could be because you haven’t increased your payment since the annual rent increase, or you haven’t updated your new rent amount through your Universal Credit Journal and so they are paying at last year’s rent rate. If you’re not sure, please give us a call and we can have a look for you.

Even if you can’t pay the full amount, it’s always best to pay as much as you can, as soon as you can. Give us a call and speak to your Income Officer so that we can see how we can help.

We can’t discuss someone else’s account with you without their permission. We work with all our customers who have arrears with us, no matter how small, as it is a breach of tenancy to have rent arrears or to repeatedly pay rent late.

No. We’d expect our customers to make plans ahead of Christmas each year. Rent is a priority bill and must come first.