This will take some time unless you're a maths whizz, but it keeps me awake worrying at night for months so I've decided to ask for help from someone online who might kindly take that time for me. I would be unbelievably grateful to finally have this figure out once and for all...
I moved into rented housing on 18th July this year.
The rent is £560 monthly.
Housing Benefit is paid 4 weekly, so is calculated annually but paid 4 weekly.
That means I have £126.92 paid into my bank every 4 weeks, leaving me a 'shortfall' of £52.32 each time my rent's due, which is made up from my own income. But that balances out annually, so I do actually receive £560 a month over a year.
I paid £280 as two weeks rent in advance because I moved in mid-month. (As well as £870 deposit ), but that's irrelevant.
Due to a Housing Benefit (HB) claim delay, I then had to find another £560 of my own money to pay another month's Rent during the claim processing interim, which I paid by online bank transfer direct to the letting agency on 10th september.
On 11th september, Housing Benefit finally processed my claim and posted a cheque for £1051.62 direct to the landlord which it said covered the period 18th July-14th sep.
I then received a payment of £126.92 direct into my bank account.
What I need to calculate is, because I paid the £560 out of my own money plus the 2 weeks in advance when I first moved in, should I claim that back from the letting agency because the HB has backdated my claim to my move-in date, so the letting agency's effectively been paid twice, haven't they?
The agency's now asking for another £68.38 to bring my rent up to date to the end of October.
So on 1st November, a payment of £560 will have to be made to the lettings agency.
Can anyone calculate how much has actually been paid to the agency, whether they've been overpaid or underpaid, and whether I can claim back the cash I paid in the interim?
Paying in advance then having a backdated HB claim paid to an agency confused me once before , surely it means the landlord's then had two lots of 'rent in advance'?