Who’s getting the rent money?

When asked under the Freedom of Information Act for a list of the top ten landlords “in terms of payments for tenancies provided” in this area the Housing Executive said they do “not compile statistics in this format and therefore hold no information in respect of this request”.

The revelation comes as the Minister for Social Development Nelson McCausland disclosed the top ten amounts paid to individual landlords throughout Northern Ireland in 2011/2012 in an answer to the Assembly.

He was asked for a list of the top ten private landlords, “in terms of (i) value; and (ii) quantity of payments, who receive housing benefit payments from the Housing Executive; and what is the sum of the payments to each landlord”.

He responded: “The Housing Executive advises that the information cannot be provided in the format requested as information about payment of Housing Benefit is only held for landlords/companies and cannot be disaggregated. The Housing Executive

further advise that in order not to contravene Data Protection legislation, details of the names of the landlords/ companies cannot be released.”

However, he detailed the top ten amounts of Housing Benefit paid to landlords/companies during 2011/12.

The Housing Executive in Londonderry were also unable to disclose the number of their former properties which are now being rented in the private sector.

The amount of money taken from the public purse and given to private landlords and companies is ever increasing with a seven fold increase in the Waterside alone in the last five years.

Under the same Freedom of Information request the Sentinel also discovered that spot checks are not used in routine fraud investigations to ensure those eligible for benefits are actually living in the property.