hosuing benefit to LHA - possible?

newname_3

Hi I have a friend who is on benefits due to ill health. They rent privately and claim housing benefit. They've just found out their housing benefit has been reduced for this year (rent officer assessment) but the rent stays the same.

It would be much better for them to be on the new Local Housing Allowance but they don't want to move because of being ill and liking hwere they are already. Can they stop their claim, leave it a week and then reapply - will they then be a new claim and get LHA?

I can lend them money to cover rent in the mean time while it all gets sorted out.

turkleton

There's nothing to stop them from withdrawing their claim and then reapplying. As you say there would be a gap of a week but if they would be better off they could make this up with the extra they would receive in LHA. Just bare in mind they would have to reapply all over again which means they would probably need to supply proof of rent, income, capital etc and failure to do this within the given time limits could cost them more benefit.

newname_3

Hi turkleton. Do you know about withdrawing the current claim? Would my friend just need to write and say that they want to end it? Or ring up? I think they can gather all the information required easily enough but I guess things could go wrong if they put in the new claim before the've officially ended the old one?

jacnorm

I am in the same situation and I would be a lot better off under the new LHA but, I would check before ending your tenancy agreement as I think some councils have longer periods than just one week that the break in the tenancy has to be for. I will leave mine as it is as I think it is a bit of a risk but it would be interesting to see what does happen in this type of situation.

turkleton

I'd advise your friend to put a letter into the council offices (most council's insist on having any withdrawals in writing). If your friend has a partner they could withdraw the claim and reapply in the partner's name on the same day, this would mean that there won't be a weeks break as per DWP guidance.

jac/norm, I have just had a look at the circular which covers transitions from HB to LHA (G10 2008 in case you're interested) and it states
"Commissioners have held that it is a fundamental condition of an award of benefit that the claimant is prepared to receive payments. In other words, if a person indicates unequivocally and freely that they no longer wish to receive benefit, entitlement should cease from that point on.
In view of these Commissioners decisions, we do not consider that a claimant should be prevented from surrendering an award of benefit if they indicate that they no longer wish to claim it.
Once a customer withdraws their claim, there should be a minimum period of one week before their benefit could be re-instated as a new claim for LHA. "

Hope that helps

jacnorm

turkleton thanks for that info. Jacqui

dmg24

One thing that you should be aware of is that it may take some time to process the new claim, and rent will need to be paid in the meantime. Therefore it would be helpful to have some contingency funds in place, in case there is any delay in processing the name claim.

newname_3

dmg24 wrote: »

One thing that you should be aware of is that it may take some time to process the new claim, and rent will need to be paid in the meantime. Therefore it would be helpful to have some contingency funds in place, in case there is any delay in processing the name claim.

This is important. In the case of my friend, I and some others will be able to lend the money to cover the rent while there is a delay.

newname_3

Just thought I'd let you know jac that it's worth ringing your council or housing adviser in your area to find out how your local autjority handles this. My friend is in the process of switching here and the council have made it very straight forward. They have a form to do it - first page is a declaration that you want to stop your hb claim and then the rest is to say you want to go on to LHA from a week later. (You have to lose a week's housing benefit but it could well be worth it.)

lil_me

Keep checking the LHA entitlements, not forgetting they are entitled specific amount of bedrooms not per room as with HB, if the local reference rents for the area are falling due to cheaper rentals the LHA might also drop (they are reviewed monthly IIRC)

shjo558

If Mr is the current claimant, get Mrs to submit a new benefit claim and there won't be a 1 week gap in entitlement.