Advantages of Housing Assistance Payment for landlords and agents

The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme is a local authority-provided social housing support that works for landlords, agents and tenants alike.

HAP provides housing assistance for households that qualify for social housing support, and many long-term Rent Supplement recipients.

The benefits for landlords and agents include:

• HAP landlords are paid monthly by local authorities on a tenant’s behalf
• no rent collection necessary -all payments are made electronically
• HAP payments are made regardless of a change in tenant income
• no up-front private rental standards inspections or tax compliance checks (both can follow after the tenancy and the rental payments have started, if required)

HAP tenants are required to pay a weekly rental contribution directly to their local authority. Local authorities can suspend or eventually stop payments for non-payment of rent by the tenant. However, the risk of non-payment occurring is low. The HAP team work very closely with tenants to make sure that they pay their rent on time.