I am confused with my LHA

ExTra_2

I am all confused by the officer who adjusted my LHA, he explained to me why and what he will do, but when I got the notification letter today, I am still confused.

Basically, I have started receiving DLA, so instead of using the shared rate of LHA, I am now entitled to the one bedroom rate. My LHA with the DLA element is backdated to June with £184/ week as the LHA for a one bedroom. My actual rent is £135 / week, so the amount used in the calculation is £150 (£135 + £15 excess HB).

My rent is going to go up to £138 / week (don't ask me why the 3 pounds, I don't know) from 19/9. But insteard of using £138 + £15 / week in the calculation, they are still using £135 + £15 / week to work out my weekly entitlement. The HB officer said it is because they can only review my LHA rate once every 52 weeks, so I would have to wait until June next year to have a new LHA rate used in my calclation. I understand that completely, but both £135 + £15 (old rent) and £138 + £15(new rent) a week are lower then the max LHA £184 / week, so when my rent goes up to £138 a week, should they use the new rent in the calculation, or are they right to be using my old rent until next year? I know if my rent goes over the max LHA, then I would have to wait, but with the increase, my actual rent + £15 is still lower then the max LHA.

If the officer is right, then it makes me think what if my rent were to go down instead, what about if my rent were to go down to £100 / week, would they then be paying me a lot more then my rent is anf the excess HB woudl be way more than £15/week?

I hope I have made my question clear and any help is appericated.

Thanks

clutton_2

you can only be paid £15 per week more than your rent (if your rent is less than LHA) - if your rent goes down - your LHA goes down.

your rental figure will only be reassed once every twelve months on the anniversary of your claim start

property.advert

Usually, your rent and annual assessment would coincide, or they would if you had a 12 month tenancy.

This LHA is a truly daft invention. In the old days, you never got your full housing benefit, always minus a pound here or there but now you can get £65 a month more.

You would be wise to note that there are rumblings, including on TV last week, about stopping this. It costs hundreds of millions extra a year and has a terrible effect on the housing market. I'll explain as I have first hand experience here.

In Enfield in London, a 2 bed LHA is £970 a month. The "real" rent of a decent 2 bed flat is about £700/750 a month but because the state will pay out £965, what happens is that the rent rises to this level. In essence, working people are not the highest income producing tenants. The non caring, unemployed and often refugee family are assisted to an unrealistic level and as such, workers are forced to pay more. Properties are also poorly maintained as the likely occupants are the great unwashed.

I see this all over Enfield. All properties for rent are listed at the LHA or thereabouts. The real value is much less but this daft LHA has thrown reality out of the window.

Finally, why should people profit from getting their rent paid ?

ExTra_2

So basically, if my rent is more than £15 lower than the LHA, it would always be my rent + £15 then? My tenancy is just a one monthly roll on one, as I have been there for over a year now, and in fact my rent went down early this year.

I understand the + £15 thing, I remember I went to the office and told them they are over paying me and they laughed. But are they not going to get rid of it next year anyway? I think it would be more fair that way.

And with the LHA, I know it makes no sense, in Southwark, which happens to be one of the biggest borouughs in London, they have just 1 set of LHA across the board. Now I have to look for somewhere near my doctor and closer to work for a medical reason, but I just cannot afford it, coz both London Bridge and Crystal Palace are both Southwark, now clearly the rents of the two areas are very different, but they use the same LAH rate £185, I could probably get a 2 bed for that price in Crystal Palace, but in London Bridge, with that price you could only get a room in a large house...

property.advert

Yes, your HB will be a maximum of £65 a month more than your rent if your LHA is higher. Here is the LHA link https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/Secure/Default.aspx If you play around with this and the http://www.freemaptools.com/uk-postcode-map.htm and http://www.streetmap.co.uk/ sites you can plan a strategy.

Your agreements with the LHA are for a year at a time. I can't tell you how to "play" the system but let us say that you can get a 2 bed place in the Central London LHA for less than the £495 a week allowance. If one understands that point, then you can see how an agreeable landlord could structure a contract which was a higher cost than the norm because of the get out (or other) clause benefits it awarded you. The fact that you never take up these options (such as the ability to immediately cancel the agreement for instance ?) does not mean that they are not the reason your quoted rent is higher than it otherwise would be. It would be an individual's choice how he negotiated with his prospective landlord.

john539

property.advert wrote: »

This LHA is a truly daft invention. In the old days, you never got your full housing benefit, always minus a pound here or there but now you can get £65 a month more.
Finally, why should people profit from getting their rent paid ?

ExTra wrote: »

But are they not going to get rid of it next year anyway? I think it would be more fair that way.

People just don't understand why LHA was introduced.

Bufger

john although its there to genuinly help a few we both know a large percentage dont know or even care why it was introduced. Its just a method of getting paid for doing nothing for the lazy. It detracts away from people who genuinly need it and gives all recievers a bad name.

(not on any benefits by the way. Just an observation)

SingleSue

I'm on old style housing benefit......could someone explain to me about the £15, confuzzles the life out of me to have the rent amount and then that funded plus an extra £15 on top (if your rent rate is less than LHA).

poppysarah

They're stopping the £15 and need to stop landlords abusing the LHA system. Rents need to come down not go up.

john539

Bufger wrote: »

john although its there to genuinly help a few we both know a large percentage dont know or even care why it was introduced. Its just a method of getting paid for doing nothing for the lazy. It detracts away from people who genuinly need it and gives all recievers a bad name.

(not on any benefits by the way. Just an observation)

The market & economics is not as simple as that.

Try keeping to the point, always helps.

silvercar

SingleSue wrote: »

I'm on old style housing benefit......could someone explain to me about the £15, confuzzles the life out of me to have the rent amount and then that funded plus an extra £15 on top (if your rent rate is less than LHA).

The extra £15 a week only applies to LHA. Basically you would be entitled to rent upto the LHA level for the size of property you are entitled to, but if the rent is lower than LHA you can keep upto £15 a week (£65 a month).

So if you were entitled to a 2 bed property and the LHA for a 2 bed in your area was say £800 a month, you could choose to rent somewhere that was only £735 a month and you would get to keep £65 a month. If you rented somewhere that was £700 a month, you would still only get £65 a month for yourself. If your rent was £760 a month you would get £40. If your rent was £820 a month you would need to find £20 a month to top-up.

To move from HB to LHA you would need to end your HB claim and start a new claim a week later. The problem is that you would need to find the rent for the intervening week and fund yourself until the new claim is sorted. (Or have an understanding landlord or one who will raise your rent to a higher level just because the LHA rate is higher and cope with the delays and rent free week caused by your claim change).