Universal credit deductions

Paying off rent arrears and service charges through deductions from your benefit.

Rent and service charge arrears

Your landlord can ask the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to take money off your monthly universal credit (UC) payment if you owe rent or service charges.

This can include:

unpaid rent
service charge arrears included in rent
some service charge arrears for leaseholders

You must owe at least 2 months rent.

The DWP pays this money direct to your landlord or freeholder to reduce your arrears.

Leasehold service charge arrears are only included if your UC housing element helps with these charges.

Ground rent arrears are not included.

How much can be taken?

The DWP should look at your situation. They should:

check what you can afford
think about if deductions might make debt problems better or worse

The DWP can set a rent arrears deduction within a range.

They should not just take the maximum amount if this is not reasonable in your situation.

Table: monthly rent arrears deductions from April 2024

This table shows the highest and lowest amounts that can be taken to pay off rent arrears. Amounts are rounded to the nearest pound.

Claim type	Highest	Lowest
Single person under 25	£62	£31
Single person aged 25 or over	£79	£39
Couple - both under 25	£98	£49
Couple - either person 25 or over	£124	£62

Ask the DWP to take less

You can ask the DWP to take less if:

they take more than the lowest amount
you cannot afford things like food, rent, bills or other essential costs

Call the UC helpline on 0800 328 5644

If you cannot get through or find it hard to speak to someone on the phone, leave a message like this in your UC journal:

You are taking money for rent arrears from my universal credit.

I find these deductions very hard.

My UC payment after deductions is only £xxx.

My rent and other bills are £xxx a month.

This only leaves me with £xxx a month for food and other essentials.

Please can you reduce the amount you are taking to the lowest amount you can.

If you have money taken off for other debts

Money taken from your UC to pay off debts to another person or company are called 'third party deductions'. The DWP can only make up to 3 of these deductions at any one time.

The DWP has a 'priority order' if they take money for more than one debt.

Rent arrears are usually the lowest in the priority order. But the DWP might decide they should come first if the deduction is to stop you being evicted.

Example: when rent arrears become a priority for the DWP

Rae owes money for rent, gas, electricity and council tax.

She pays back her energy company and council tax arrears through UC deductions.

She pays a small amount to her housing association each month for her rent arrears.

Rae's fridge breaks down. She has to buy a replacement and misses another rent payment.

The housing association give Rae an eviction notice. They tell the DWP that they will not ask the court to evict Rae if deductions can be made from her UC.

The DWP agree to this. The rent arrears have become a high priority.

The council tax deduction stops because the DWP can only make 3 different third party deductions at the same time. Rae contacts the council to set up a council tax repayment plan instead.