(1)Housing benefit provided by virtue of a scheme under section 122 of the Contributions and Benefits Act (in this Act referred to as “the housing benefit scheme”)—
(a)is to be in the form of a rate rebate, if it is in respect of payments by way of rates;
(b)is to be in the form of a rent rebate, if it is in respect of payments, other than payments by way of rates, to be made to the Housing Executive; and
(c)is in any other case to be in the form of a rent allowance.
(2)The rebates and allowances referred to in subsection (1) above may take any of the following forms, that is to say—
(a)a payment or payments by the Housing Executive or the Department of the Environment, as the case may be, to the person entitled to the benefit; and
(b)a reduction in the amount of any payments which that person is liable to make to the Housing Executive or the Department of the Environment, as the case may be, by way of rent or rates; or
(c)such a payment or payments and such a reduction;
and in any statutory provision (whenever passed or made) “pay”, in relation to housing benefit, includes discharge in any of those forms.
(3)Housing benefit shall be administered by—
(a)the Housing Executive in so far as it relates to persons who are tenants of the Executive, private tenants or tenants of registered housing associations;
(b)the Department of the Environment in so far as it relates to persons who own and occupy their dwellings.
(4)Regulations may provide that in prescribed cases a payment made by a person entitled to a rent allowance shall be treated for the purposes of subsection (1)(a) above as being, to such extent as may be prescribed, a payment by way of rates.
(5)Circumstances may be prescribed in which a rate rebate may be treated as if it fell to be paid as a rent allowance.
(6)In this section—
“private tenants” means tenants under any tenancy except—
a tenancy under which the estate of the landlord belongs to—
the Housing Executive; or
a registered housing association;
a tenancy the purpose of which is to confer on the tenant the right to occupy a dwelling-house for a holiday;
“registered housing association” means a housing association registered in the register maintained under Part VII of the [S.I. 1981/156 (N.I. 3).] Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1981.