housing benefit

[roundthebend4]

think this is going to be something that hits people hard

In future, the maximum payout will be capped at £20,000 a year. Payouts will also be pegged to the lowest 30 per cent of local rents instead of the local average

so the $400 a week max will probably only apply to central London .

I am already capped here and pay £125 a month , struggled to find some one that would con sider Hb and even more that is suitable for Ds3 due to his disablites.I did see cheaper place which would have saved me the £125 a month but the though of having to carry ds3 up and down 2 flights of stairs or up a flight every time he wanted a wee was enough to put me of

So just moving to cheaper property would not work

If you look on the LHA website you can download a map which show the area covered by your broad market rental area. I am quite shocked at how big ours is - makes sense though, the LHA is higher than most properties for the size in the immediate (fairly run-down, studenty, but still expensive compared to rest of UK) area - but the BMRA covers Stratford Upon Avon as well which is much more expensive. Public transport not fantastic in the surrounding area either so I pity anyone on HB who lives and works in Stratford and doesn't drive.

Is that available or total rental stock?

Bertie same as here then- except we live in the area to be pitied! As does everyone else I know.

Ah well

I know - I've just looked at that map - all I think think is that we have several pretty cheap bigger towns..........but LOTS and LOTS of villages and small towns.

I'm in probably the 3rd cheapest town (although the 2nd cheapest seems to be comparable) on price now) in the BMRA.........and yet the LHA would currently only cover all of the rent on 10% of properties here

Perhaps it only takes into account LA and HA rents then

tocattanfudge I have been playing around estimating different figures based on different areas and rents on rightmove etc (sorry, bit of a maths geek ) - and I reckon the Northants Central one will be around £550 pcm for a 3-bed. That's £126.92pw - the current rate is £126.58, so you're right, it actually goes up slightly.

Like you say though it doesn't help if you live in one of the more expensive areas. And I found when househunting last year that the places to rent out in the middle of nowhere are dirt cheap and there is loads of choice, because most people who need to rent cheaply rely on public transport, hence they must be difficult to rent out. So I am a bit worried that these remote houses are going to fill up the bottom 30%, and as they don't tend to be on websites like Rightmove etc, but just advertised through the local papers I wonder whether or not they will be taken into account by councils.

that's in interesting point about those properties that aren't advertised on rightmove/agents.

How will they measure those - unless they have people that are claiming HB moving into them there's not really going to be any way to know about them is there? I mean - can you imagine some poor sod being given the job of traipsing round all the Polish shops, the supermarkets, corners shops, etc etc and scouring the papers to work out what prices those are.

I have to say I'm not sure exactly how much LHA I get........I know the rate when I applied was slightly higher than my rent......

but they never did send me a letter to tell me how much I'd been awarded .

And I tend to get my CTC and my LHA mixed up, they go into my account about 4 days apart and I can never remember which one is which and they're very similar figures.

You won't ever get more in HB than your rent actually is - you might get less (as the LHA figure for the amount of bedrooms you are entitled to is the maximum) but never more. At least that is how it works in this area. The rate for a 2-bed house is somewhere around £635pcm, I found somewhere for £600, so I get £600 per month in HB, but paid in 4-weekly installments, so it's something like £574 eevry 4 weeks.

This house wasn't advertised through an agency though. I couldn't find an agency who would touch me without a guarantor earning 3 times the rent which worked out at about £22,000+. I don't know anyone who earns that kind of money!

Can anyone answer my question wrt HB?

Does the 10% cut after 12 months only apply to JSA claimants?

What happens to HB if you are on a very low income, possibly less than JSA, but not actually claiming JSA IYSWIM?

from the LHA FAQ's

". What if my rent is less than the Local Housing Allowance that applies to me?

If the rent of the property you have negotiated with your landlord is lower than the LHA rate you may be able to keep any excess up to a maximum of £15 per week.

This excess will not normally be taken into account when deciding other benefits.

If the rent is higher than the LHA rate you will be required to pay the difference or look for alternative accomodation within the LHA rates.

Entitlement to LHA is means-tested and you will need to provide a valid tenancy agreement as proof."

As I read the documentation, the 10% cut applies only to JSA. (And they should be ashamed ... sorry, couldn't help myself but am so cross ...)

so yes you can get up to £15 a week more

and psst £574 every 4 weeks is £621 a month

Yes, it's targeted at people on JSA.

At a time when they (the government) themselves have forecasted unemployment to rise to over 8%.

Let's not focus on house prices that are the cause of this whole bollocks in the first place.

More homeless children and elderly people who've been made redundant but are too young for the new retirement ages and can't find a job!

Great fucking job, DC and Clegg. Can't wait to see you both in hell, tbh.

I didn't look at the figure, I just guessed. Maybe not so much a maths geek after all...

I am pretty sure that I don't get any extra anyway. It must depend on the council.

• I bet you do.........I like to think of the extra £15 I get to keep as a "reward" for being so darned clever to find a house that would accept HB and "under budget" too

of course if they didn't insist on paying HB/LHA every 4 weeks.......when went is generally due once a month it would make life much simpler for everyone.................

bertiebotts, the person i know, who I talked about earlier on the thread, was looking for a home to rent in a very rural area last year.
She did find some places cheaper but she always got the same reply from agents and landlords themselves: no kids, no dss, no HB. so i'm not sure about the countryside places filing up with that percentage as she found it so difficult/impossible.
i guess it might depend on what area you are in and how keen the landlord is to accept HB and most private landlords don't seem very keen in her experience.

I am going to have to check now .....

Wow you are right! It's not £15 a week but I think it is the difference between LHA and my rent. Thanks for that, I feel rich now...

Yes you are right about the 4-weekly thing. It's difficult enough that they pay it in arrears, but I can sort of understand that. I had a separate account for the HB/rent originally, but for some reason my IS ended up getting paid into that account too so I hadn't noticed the difference.

lego, Private landlords are more willing to accept it than agencies IME, especially if you are not working. It's a bugger to find anywhere though TBH. Took me 3 months and that was a fluke, because my mum said she was so in the habit of checking the back of the paper by the time I did find somewhere that she kept looking, and didn't see anything else suitable until about 4 months later

Sorry if I wasn't entirely clear, I meant that it seemed when I was looking that there were a lot of empty rural properties which seemed on average to be a lot cheaper for bigger houses than the ones in town near the jobs and bus routes etc. And I was worried that if they simply look at a list of properties for rent in an area with X number of bedrooms and take the first 30% with the lowest rent to calculate the figures from, the lower priced rural properties are likely to be in the 30% and the houses actually suitable for working families will cost more. If that makes sense!

• told you

Sorry I'm orginal op if not found yet will link to where information from once home

sancti

I'm going to be in same boat really can not afford anymore rent to top ip though lol not sure how many disabled friendly BsndB there are

yep I really struggled most agents wanted gurantor 3 timed the salary do someone earning around the 45k mark.

I did get lucky finding this place,know he struggled to rent it and he was very unsure about single parent on Hb but luckily he openly admits was wrong about this 6 months down the line where been no mass parties his property has actually been looked after and improved

Mind amount people going to need. Homeless b and B this will actually cost the council and goverment more let alone the other services that will be needed to provide extra support due yo the stress and strain of living in just one room

Oh the average rent here is 1200 but mote nearer £1500 month for a 4 bed but that's same weather in town or not

'She did find some places cheaper but she always got the same reply from agents and landlords themselves: no kids, no dss, no HB. so i'm not sure about the countryside places filing up with that percentage as she found it so difficult/impossible.'

We live in a rural area. Not in receipt of HB but are working poor.

We had major trouble finding a place that would take kids.

But never saw a one that also accepted DSS.

the solution to the problem is lots more social housing and yet no one in goverment has twigged to this, come on Cameron give councils money for housing and only housing so it's not used for the councilors pet projects.While Iam at it it's a case of a few spoiling it for the many.

The trouble is, some areas are quite large. Here, for example, when I was looking for a place in my town, where I grew up, the rents are very high. However, 22 miles away, on the edge of the South Hams, on the outskirts of Plymouth, rents are much lower on run-down estates. So, you are forced to not only move far away from all your support networks, family friends, ad-hoc babysitters, and live in a dingey flat, but those cheap rents are few and far between and even fewer want to take on unemployed single parents! In the end I was made homeless with my 3 year old ds, and we were put in B&B FOR 6 wks until they rehoused us. Now, fortunately, we ahve a nice 2 bed flat in my town.