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<p>Neither tenants or landlords lose a week’s rent in a 53 weekly rent payment year
as has been alleged; no year contains 53 weeks. The problem is alignment between weekly
and monthly cycles. Each month the UC housing element is a constant figure but claimants
with weekly tenancy agreements will be required to make either four or five rent payments
within this period. If the claimant always pays their rent on time, in five payment
months they are effectively making payment for part of the following month. That month
will always be a four rent payment month, so the combination of the advance payment
and the ‘overpayment’ of housing support during that month will get the claimant back
on track.</p><p>Where a landlord charges rent weekly on a Monday, because of the way
the calendar falls every 5 or 6 years, they will seek 53 rent payments in a year,
with the 53rd payment in part covering the tenancy for the first few days of the following
year. The effect of this is that, over the course of the next housing association
rental year, a tenant’s UC payments will accurately reflect their liability, irrespective
of the 53 payment weeks.</p><p>There is a separate issue with respect to the way the
calculation in the Universal Credit regulations converts a weekly liability into a
monthly allowance. The conversion is achieved by multiplying the weekly rent by 52
and then dividing by 12. This effectively means one day’s rent a year (two days in
a leap years) are not covered by UC. We are currently considering whether this formulation
around weekly rents, and potentially other weekly amounts in the UC calculation, should
be amended.</p>
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