New housing benefit rules have reduced payment by £60 month :(

[Challen]

The new Local Housing Allowance rules for housing benefit payments have just kicked in, in my area. My HB has now been reduced by £60 a month, because myself and two children in a two bedroom house, according to the new LHA rules and market rental value, is at £495 pcm. When in fact, two bedroom houses in this village are averaging £650pcm.

Does anyone have a similar story? I'm wondering if I can appeal the drop, as finding an extra £60 a month will, literally, be impossible.

I had a letter at the weekend. My payments will drop by £30 a week.

There's already a large discrepancy between the LHA and the rents in my area, and despite living in the cheapest flat in the city I'd need to find £2000/yr to top it up.

The worst part is that if I work more they just drop the payments so it's not even like I can do anything about it.

My friend is looking at moving because of the LHA changes. I think the drop is £50pw (we are in central London) so it's just not possible to make up the difference. It's a real shame, as we were originally both living on the same council estate, but she moved a few streets away into private rental to get into a different school catchment. My HB is unaffected but she won't be able to get back into council housing now, so is looking at the outer boroughs which will make it impossible to continue at the same schools, stay near family etc.

Same here.

The amount dropped yet the local rate has risen in the last 3 years. My landlord issued a section 21 giving me two months to move. He knows full well he will be getting at least an extra £150 pm.

So now I can't find a place I can afford let alone somewhere who will take housing benefit tenants anyway.

As of Monday my landlord will be seeking an eviction order and the LA will be placing me in b&b.

The whole situation sucks :(

Maybe you could get a job to support yourself?

That wasn't meant to sound harsh btw!!
How old are your dc?

I could hubba.

Now if I could just find one that will pay me enough to cover child care for two children, extortionate rents and all the usual bills.....

There's plenty of jobs out there right now isn't there??

X post hubba.

It did sound very harsh.

Honestly, I could never bring in enough on a single wage to support us. It will never happen. And yes, retraining would help. But university will be an expensive 3 years too!

Oh christ :( That's awful (but unfortunately not surprising) I wish I had some advice for all of you! Really hope you can find a solution

yes mine dropped by £105 a month in january.

the allowance for a 2 bedroom house in my area is £404 a month. any i have found have been at least £450. i'm moving to a new house in a few weeks that is £450 so shouldn't struggle so much. it must be just awful for thos who are stuck in their house and cant get the rent reduced.

hubba are you currently job seaching? i'm guessing not because you would know how incredibly difficult it is to find work at the minute.

Charlie it may well end up that getting evicted turns out better for you in the long run. It won't be easy to have to go into temp accomm, but if you can get a council place at the end of it, you'll be in a much more secure position in the longer term and that can give you the breathing space to retrain. My rent is very low for our area, and while life here is erm...'interesting', it's not all crack dens and knife gangs .

Eagle - that's the thing I'm hanging on to at 3 am when blind panic hits me :o

But you know, being benefit scum I should just be sitting back and enjoying my plasma screen as the money rolls in. It is the easy life after all.

Sorry

I'm incredibly snippy today. I've read some horrible things about benefits and council housing recently. I should just sit on my hands though :)

My HB reduced in January and has just gone down again. My rent is £500pcm and I now get around £80 HB per month, which means I have to find £420 myself. I work part time and earn just over £800 per month, so things are very tight (I don't get any council tax benefit at all). I've been looking for cheaper properties but there just aren't any - I've lived in my house just over 2.5 years and thankfully the landlord hasn't put up the rent since I moved in, but other rents have been rising in that time so even properties that are nowhere near as decent as mine now cost more than mine. I'm on the council list but don't have a cat in hell's chance of getting anything. It sucks.

Ours is going down by £12 a week meaning I will be paying rent top up of £200 a month. Apparently the LHA on a two bed in my area is £410 a month yet on the property sites, they are between 550-600.(ours is 600)
I'm disabled and have limited choice wrt housing, I need ground floor or a house with a toilet on each floor. I can't go further out of town as I can no longer drive and getting to a bus stop would be an issue (bus services have been cut also) I also need a LL that will accept HB (gold dust) I can't afford to move anyway so just got to suck it up along with the other cuts affecting disabled people