Will my letting agent know iam making housing claim?

[sim1975]

Iam in the process of looking for a house to rent (in Yorkshire area of UK) but want to know will landlord letting agent be informed when I claim housing? It actually says no they won’t unless I want them to deduct rent directly from the landlord account, but then it also says universal credit verify your housing costs by sending HCV form to landlords, so obviously they will know then if they send them that? Or is that just for certain landlords? Iam going through private landlord that is managed by a letting agency . Anyone else know how this HCV works ? As I don’t want my landlord/ letting to know I will be claiming aswell .

Universal Credit need to verify your Housing Costs. If you're renting privately, which from the context of your post I guess you are, then you'll probably need to show them your tenancy agreement and anything that is proof of subsequent rent increases.

The DWP have no authority to approach the landlord without your informed consent.

I have heard that there is something to do with insurance clauses not liking benefits claimants so LL might need to know for insurance.

The short answer is no. Unless you want UC to pay your LL directly then no they won’t.

How do you plan on showing that you can afford the rent if you’ll need the Housing element on UC?

Well iam borrowing money to give advance rent to them plus a guarantor I’ve done that in the past too and paid back from my housing element . But thank you for everyone who has replied to my post your answers are much appreciated

When I rented out my my house it was a standard question "are you in receipt of benefits " because my landlords insurance was invalid if the tenant was. The exception to this was permanent disability benefits.
But this was more than three years ago now but it did mean that we couldn't rent to tenants who had housing benefit.
Are you going to pass a credit check OP?

Hi @sim1975 I know this was posted last month but I wondered if you got your answer in the end and if so, did the landlord know about you were in receipt of UC?