housing benefit pickle!

Yasha

Hello all, hope someone can help me figure this little mess out!
I'm moving in to a house on 11th January. The rent is £665 and £650 is paid by housing benefit 4 weekly instead of monthly. I'm paying the first months rent in advance.
The first housing benefit payment will be on 25th Jan. for two weeks, then theres another payment on 22nd Feb. The next is 22nd March and so on.
The landlord only wants payments on the 11th of each month so will I be having to top up the difference constantly to make sure it's all there on the 11th? Do I end up losing money doing it this way or does it all come back to me eventually with the housing benefit payments?
(that is apart from having to pay the difference as HB pay less than the rent actually is)
Hope someone can help. it's too confusing for me! As I've just lost my job and have to claim full housing benefit for now, im worried about having to pay £300 odd to 'top up' the rent and make sure its there on time for the 11th. Shame they can't just accept housing benefit directly.

sassygirl_2

Housing benefit is paid in arrears, so the payment you get on the 25th jan is for the 11th jan to 25th, then the payment on the 22nd feb, is for the 26th Jan to 22nd feb and so on. You are paying a month up front, so paid up to the 11th Feb, so yes you would probably have to find rent for half a month.

Eventually it will all catch up with itself as HB is paid four weekly and rent is paid monthly. 4 weekly is 13 payments a year and monthly is 12 payments. So you wont always be paid on the 22nd. (Your payment should be the 19th feb not the 22nd)
In June your paymetn will be 11th then July it will be 9th, so eventually it will catch up.

Im not very good at explaining, so sorry if this doesnt make sense lol

uganda

Firstly, when you say you will be paid £650 4-weekly, do you mean you will be paid the equivalent of £162.50pw or £150.00pw?

Secondly, are you sure your local authority has made its decision already? It is unusual, and wrong for them to assess your claim before you move in, but you seem to be in possession of a lot of detail about their decision.

fluffybunnies

So long as they have the tenancy agreement already in place and have stated the date on which they move in (as OP has) then there should be no reason why they cannot assess housing benefit already.

CocoPopsLover

Does it not depend on you local authority as to how quick they assess your claim?

With mine, they assess your claim on the spot in the office and you get a decision there and then with your award and when your first payment will be!

I agree with fluffybunnies, as long as she has her tenancy agreement and the date she will move in.

I claims HB a week before my pay went down to SMP, all they did was asess the claim there but never started payments until my SMP came into effect

uganda

One of the main conditions for getting housing benefit is that you are actually occupying the home you are claiming for (there are exceptions but this isn't one of them). A decision cannot be finalised until such time as you have physically moved in. At the moment, regardless of the lease, you have nothing more than an intention to occupy - this could change in the intervening period for any number of good reasons, or even bad ones.

That does not mean to say that there are not some councils who may incorrectly pay ahead of time. I know of 2 that do, though in my experience most don't.

And when the decision is made, it will be the date you moved in which will be the claim date, not the actual day you claimed, for performance and subsidy purposes.

Anyway, good luck with it.

elaina79

I have just worked out your payment dates for 2010. You get paid 4 weekly and not monthly therefor your dates change each month. They are as follows;
Jan 25th, Feb 22nd, March 22nd, April 19th, May 17th, June 14th, July 12th, August 9th, September 6th, October 4th, November 1st and 29th, December 27th.

If you are still on HB in november you get 2 payments for that month. As you can see for some months you will need to put the extra money towards it but you will balance it out once the payment comes in. From august onwards you will get the payment before the rent is due.