Rent payments from uc

[FirstTimeMama2022]

I'm really just looking for some advice on housing and universal credit as I've no idea about any of it.

So my partner and I both work part-time & we have an 8mo dd. We started claiming uc after dd arrived as I was reduced to maternity pay. We are currently living with family but looking at getting our own place before dd is much older.

Long story short we have no priority when it comes to social housing. I know if we want to rent privately uc would still pay towards rent. But here's the main question.

As our hours of work and earnings vary each month, uc award us money based off of our earnings so some months we get more uc, some we get less. Would this also be the case with housing costs? So I seen we should be entitled to 2 bedrooms and about £600 in housing costs per month, but would this drop depending on our earnings each month as some months our uc award is zero. So would we need to pay full rent ourselves at times?

Just really haven't got a clue and any advice is welcome!

Check out local housing allowance in your area. Weekly x 52 divide 12. You will get that added into your maximum UC figure. Then your earnings will be taken into account as it is now.

Basically if you receive some UC now the monthly maximum allowable rent will be extra you receive.

However what your actual rent is likely to be more than the LHA and you’ll have to make up the shortfall.

On the months your UC is nil then you must earn more than you’d be entitled to.

Have a look how much over the limits you were. It’s all broken down in the statement.

@CornishTiger the months we got nil were back in Dec/Jan as I was still on full maternity pay but we've always received something since then.

We're in Scotland and were told we weren't entitled to SCP in Jan as we were nil uc but as long as we got something even £1 in uc then we'd be entitled to scp.

Do you think the same would apply to housing costs? As long as we get something from uc we would get rent element?

Universal Credit starts by working out how much the law says you need to live on. They call that figure your 'Max UC'.

While you're lodging with family that will be made up of a Standard Allowance for your own living expenses and a Child Element for your DD. The total of those, assuming you're over 25, gives you £848.40/month. At present you will get a work allowance, earnings you can keep before your UC is reduced, of £631. Earnings above that reduce UC payable by 55p for every £1 over £631.

If you rent privately at £600/month then your max UC will add that as a Housing Element taking it to around £1448.

However, once your award includes a Housing Element the Work Allowance is reduced to £379 so you will lose more UC to the taper but will still be getting around £460/month more than now.

why are you both working part time ?