Housing benefit claimants in Bradford could find themselves homeless because of a massive backlog of applications.

Private landlords have warned that they are having to evict tenants or refuse DSS applications because they are losing money over the delays.

Thomas Crompton, who has run a property business in Bradford for ten years, said he was waiting up to three months to be notified of claims which had no guarantee of being successful.

"There are people who move into properties who are never going to be able to pay for it," he said. "Unfortunately, we just can't accept anymore DSS -- it's got nothing to do with them, its because the housing benefit can't pay the rent.

"I am one of the last landlords to follow suit. I have never victimised anybody and it's sad that we have start doing this now."

Simon Brayshaw, of Bradlon properties, added that applications were taking around ten weeks to process instead of the usual five to six weeks. "It's unfair to us as landlords and unfair to the tenants," he said.

Jan Curry of Bradford's CHAS Housing Aid today said the agency was seeing a large number of tenants who had been threatened with evictions.

Blaming the backlog on the complicated application process, she said she sympathised with the landlords. "We are very concerned because we are finding that tenants are getting into a lot of difficulties because of the housing benefit claims. They are not being processed and landlords are taking action. In all this the tenants are blameless."

A Bradford Council spokesman said that extensive checks of housing benefit claims were being undertaken in line with new Government guidelines. Claims were being processed as quickly as possible.

He said: "This is the first year that we have been enforcing what is known as the verification framework and this has meant that it now takes longer for our staff to process people's benefit claims."