Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support

Social housing size restrictions (aka 'Bedroom Tax')

Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support

Low income households can claim Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support, these are means-tested and are there to help pay your rent and Council Tax. You may be eligible to claim Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support if you pay rent or Council Tax and your income and capital (savings and investments) are below a certain level.

You may be able to claim Housing Benefit to help you pay your rent if you are:

• renting from the council (council houses)
• renting from a housing association
• renting from a private landlord

Housing Benefit can not be used to pay a mortgage. If you have a mortgage you may be able to get help with paying the interest from the Department for Work and Pensions.

Who can claim these benefits?

You cannot claim benefit if:

you have savings of £16,000 or more, unless you are getting guaranteed pension credit

You cannot claim housing benefit if:

you rent your home from a close relative who lives in the same house

Most students and some people from abroad cannot claim. However, each case is different and you can contact us to ask for advice.

The online benefit calculator will help you to explore whether you can make a claim and how much benefit or support you may be able to get.

More details can be found in this section including the page: How to make a claim for benefit

Social Housing Size Restriction (also known as Bedroom Tax)

From 1 April 2013 Housing Benefit for working age people who live in council or housing association properties (i.e. in the social sector) has changed.

Central Government has introduced a new size criteria in the social sector. Households will now be assessed based on the number of bedrooms required. This means that people who have more bedrooms than they require, will have their Housing Benefit reduced.

In general one bedroom will be allowed for:

every adult couple (married or unmarried)
any other adult aged 16 or over
any two children of the same sex under 16
any two children regardless of sex under 10
any other child, (other than a child whose main home is elsewhere)
a carer (or team of carers) who do not live with you but provide you or your partner with overnight care
a foster child where the claimant or partner is an approved foster carer
an extra bedroom for children who are unable to share because of their severe disabilities

Where someone has more bedrooms than their household needs, a 14% or 25 % reduction will be made to the eligible rent and service charges. 14% for one additional room, 25% for two or more.

If you would like to find out more information about Social Housing Size Restriction then please contact us.

Finding rental property if claiming benefit

A self-service website is available from April 2013 this is free to use by landlords and tenants in the Arun district. The site is part of a local government project to improve access to existing residents and those looking for privately-rented accommodation.

Arun District Council has joined other local authorities to sign up for the ‘Letshelpyou’ service, which is the only website that calculates your local housing allowance against properties in the Arun area. Once you find a property, you can contact the landlord using the details provided.

What can you use this site for:

landlords will be able to advertise all their properties in the Arun District for free and there are no limits on the number they can list
the Bedroom Calculator on the website shows the size of property a person claiming housing benefit would qualify for on application. A person can apply to receive benefit towards larger or smaller properties but needs to remember that the benefit will be based on the number of bedrooms that they are entitled to according to the rules
a Local Housing Allowance (LHA) calculator features on the site and residents who are in receipt of benefits can use it to work out the likely contribution towards the rent that they may be able to claim from their local council. All property rents are compared with the appropriate LHA rates so residents will be able to easily check if they can afford the property
tenants can sign up to the Property Tracker and receive email alerts relating to new property listings that match their needs
landlords will also be able to use the Tracker to see how many people have viewed their properties on the website.

To find out more about Letshelpyou and register visit https://arun.letshelpyou.co.uk/lets/