Anyone come across this yet? HB on to LHA rates

Our local authority operates on this new scheme- Basically they award you a rebate based on how many people your family consists of and how many rooms they feel you need. So everyone with the exact same family structure as you receives the same money. We are a couple with a small baby and the council states all family's with this make-up are entitled to £85 (not sure on the exact figure but it is something like this) a week rent rebate. So as you can appreciate a house for our family at £340 a month is non-existant so we have to top-up our rent substantially! As always when councils change these things they don't seem to benefit us...... just the councils budget.
Check out your local councils website, they should give a breakdown of what your entitlements are.

Yeah, I've never known LHA rates to be lower than housing benefit. I live in London, and whenever I've moved into rented accommodation (before I had my inheritance by the way) I've never bothered to get pre-tenancy determinations; you really can't afford to let on that you might be a benefit claimant when looking for accommodation in London, because if you do, then lettings agencies will invariably say "NO" - and you say "not even with a bigger deposit?" and then they say "well okay then, but no less than six months' rent up front. And it's got to be a bank draft; we can't take cash for that amount due to anti-money-laundering policies."

No, what you've got to do is stay tight-lipped about it, but just claim benefits anyway, and just take your tenancy agreement down to the LA office as proof of tenancy once you've got the keys.

However, whenever I've done this, my "eligible rent" has always been my full rent, and I've never had to make up any extra.

I'm still in the same rented accommodation that I moved into before LHA came in, but my LHA rate is still significantly higher than my actual rent.

Basically goes along the lines of, we have changed your HB and the rent officer believes the rent is too high we have changed it to **** which is the LHA rate for her.

I thought that people weren't supposed to lose out as a result of the transition from housing benefit to local housing allowance?

Theoretically, though, I suppose the rent service could have dropped the eligible rent at any stage. I suppose it could be argued that the fact that the new eligible rent figure is the same as the LHA rate is a coincidence.

Isn't there any kind of appeal process for rent levels?

If the tenant moved into this particular accommodation before 1989, then I believe you can apply to The Rent Service to get the reduced HB figure registered as a "Fair Rent". The landlord won't usually be allowed to charge more than that.

However, part of the point of the new LHA scheme is that tenants on benefits don't stay in accommodation where the rent is over the odds. It's supposed to be "empowering" for tenants to be able to shop around and haggle for cheaper rented accommodation.

The tenant could also try claiming a discretionary housing payment. I'd have thought your chances would be better if you really can't get anywhere cheaper in the area, or if the tenant has some kind of special needs or vulnerability which means that they can't realistically up sticks and move.

Sorry that hasn't been much help.

Just a small technicallity, I have a client who would really benefit from claiming LHA as the top rent would be much less, however the local council have told me you have to cancel your claim for hb and then submit a new claim for LHA. This mean the person is then liable for a weeks rent which is difficult for some people to afford. My point is how can the council change it over to LHA instantly just because it benefits them?