Social Housing

[blackberrytable]

I am currently on the social housing list. I am a single mother to a four year old and take home pay after tax is £2000 a month. I currently rent a small one bed property privately. I want to bid on a two bed property that is £1000 a month. Will the council pay for this rent if I am successful?

No. You claim benefits if entitled.

As above

You probably won't be successful

Why are there so many of these threads?!

Why would they pay?

@verycloakanddaggers thanks for quick reply! This is a reduced rent compared to price of two beds in my area but I just wondered if I would get any other help on top of my UC which is £750 a month

A two bedroom social housing property is £1000 a month? That seems expensive.

It's an expensive area so cheap if I were to rent privately

What makes you imagine you would?

This thread feels peculiar, if you're a benefit claimant then you presumably understand the system.

You will get whatever housing element you entitled to which may or may not cover the rent
How much do you get now for the private rental?

£1000 a month for social housing?! For a 2 bed semi detached?

What area? Most people I know pay no more than £500-£550 a month.

Whaaaaa? 😱 I don't think housing benefit will pay this much tbh.

It depends on your area use this website to calculate it https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/

There will be probably hundreds of other people bidding on it so I wouldn't even bother getting your hopes up though

They may not pay all of it but you can claim the housing element as part of your UC. do you claim it now (as in the housing element?) You need to find out what the housing amount for a two bed is for your area (they are area specific) and how much they will pay. You will be eligible for a two bed as a single mother of one.

Do a benefits calculator, good free ones that will tell you for sure

Turn to us does a good one

I looked at this @Scrubberdubber and it's says for my area a two bed £264 a month!

My rent for current property was much lower than £1000 and I could manage with UC (there wasn't a housing element). I get £750 and a portion of that is for childcare. I'd love it if they would pay for my rent too. Though seems a lot to pay on top of my current UC.

You will get the housing element but it won't go up just because the rent is more expensive.

My 2 bed social house is £400 a month. It's crazy how high some rents are.

Yeah, in my village, a social housing 2 bed bungalow is £385 to £425 a month. 2 bed house is around £390 to £440. 3 bed house is £420 to £450. Depends when the tenancy started.

Where the F is a 2 bed social housing property £1000 a month? They need reporting to the Housing Corporation. It's meant to be 'affordable housing.' £1000 a month is not 'affordable!'

So you earn £2000 a month and are asking if the government will pay your rent?

Where do you live that the housing element maximum benefits for a 2 bed property are £264 a month, yet the housing association rents out a 2 bed property for 1k?

And you get 2k per month take home and then £750 UC on top?

Something is not right in what you're saying about one or many of these things

Try entitled to or turn to us. Both benefits calculators are pretty accurate.

Lha rates are for private rents not social housing

This all seems a bit muddled. Why aren't you getting any housing element in your universal credit at the moment?

Anyway, you can use turn2us to check what help you'd be entitled to. Just make sure you put in your details as they would be if you moved into this property you're looking at

But tbh if you're living in an expensive area I wouldn't expect you to get social housing unless youre homeless

@blackberrytable

I'd imagine that's £264/week as that's how LHA is still calculated.

If you're in Social Housing eligible rent is governed via 'bedroom tax'. If you need two bedrooms then it's likely, subject to oddities like ineligible service charges, the Housing Costs Element in UC will cover the full rent. Rent is met by UC now for pretty much everybody working age except those legacy benefits for ill health or caring.

£1000/month sounds high for Social Housing but there has been a move for some time to align those rents more closely to the market as expressed by the LHA rate.

EDIT: I don't understand why, if you're on UC and renting, your UC award wouldn't include a Housing Costs Element even if it's less than the taper for earnings etc. Did you report housing costs when you made your claim?

That's not how UC works, have a look in your account in the payments section, any of the statements will show how your payment is broken down into housing/personal allowance etc.
There's is a limit too as to what they will pay for each size of house and each area is different, this amount should be either on the statement or council website.

Nope. Mine is the same. Expensive area. 🤷‍♀️