Universal credit

[shas19]

Potentially finally got a flat! Were renting and would be claiming housing benefit. I'm still in the old system, so would be moving to universal credit. Do I have to just show them my tenancy agreement when I make my new claim? Confused to how it works

Do you currently get housing benefit?? And are you moving to a new council area??

@woodpidgeons no I've never claimed it before so would be a new claim. No same area

You need to report a change on your UC journal ( home section) and report that you now have housing costs . You can do this on the day you start paying rent. You will need to report the amount of rent and under normal circumstances you would take your tenancy agreement into the job centre but you can't currently do that. If it is council or housing association you don't have to do that as they can usually ring the council and check the rent.

Firstly you need to make a claim for Universal Credit. Citizens Advice helped me on the phone with making my claim. Could you call them?? Universal Credit Essentials Facebook group is also good.

Do they pay your first months rent? I heard somewhere also that there's a rent deposit scheme

Is your new home private landlord or social housing??

You apply for UC and then in about a week you get a loan to last the first 5 weeks (you have to pay this back, it will be taken out your payments until paid back).

Whether the first month's rent will be included depends on the date you begin paying rent and the date you first claim UC.

The rent deposit scheme is your local council, you need to call them separately for that.

There are calculators you can do. The best one is on Universal Credit Essentials website.

If you can't get on there, post back and will try to help you work out what's what.