UK - Housing Benefits?

[Jessica Tam]

Does anyone here deal with renting in the UK, and housing benefits? I've dealt with students before, and that's not too bad if you can persuade them to hand over the rent when they get their student loan cheque, but I've not dealt with housing benefit.

I know there's a cap on how much housing benefit will be paid depending on the size of the property / size of the family living there, but the cap is actually decently high compared to the average cost of rent in this area.

So I was wondering why landlords in general don't like to deal with housing benefit tenants - surely they're better than normal tenants, since the government tend to be more reliable payers?

Or is it next to impossible to get the government to pay the housing benefit directly to you?

Thanks