Housing Benefit Help

BulletCraig

I have a friend who is having a pretty rough time at the moment and she's looking to split up with her partner and get her own place. Unfortunately as she is a full time adult student (having given up her job a few months back to go back to college) the only way she'd be able to afford her own place is through housing benefits. How would she go about asking for such assistance and how exactly does it work? Does the money get paid direct to the landlord or does she have to pay the rent and claim it back. It's quite an odd situation because I have another friend who is looking to rent a place out which would be ideal but he doesn't want to do it if the housing benefit is in any way going to cause him any issues (ie higher insurance or the likes). To clarify my friend with the flat trusts my other friend 100% and would have no problem taking her as a tenant with the benefits as long as there's nothing else that comes with it. The problem is neither one of them has ever dealt with benefits before so none of us are sure what impact it has on anything. The ideal situation would be my friend just pays the rent as normal (I've offered to help out there, not an issue) and claim the money back through benefits so the landlord isn't really involved in the sitaution at all but I've no idea if this is the case? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

BitterAndTwisted

Housing Benefit per se is no longer paid. Local Authorities now pay LHA and this is paid direct to the tenant but I don't know whether full-time students qualify. Presumably their grants or student loans are considered adequate to pay for accommodation charges.

SouthCoast

Find out about benefits and tax credits


https://www.dwpe-services.direct.gov.uk/portal/page/portal/ba/lp?_piref278_36249_278_36248_36248.__ora_navig=action%3DgettingStarted%26pageno%3D2

Jowo_2

I believe full time students are generally ineligible for LHA unless they have children or are disabled but the direct gov site should give advice. Your student friend could also seek advice from her college which tends to have a support/advice service in place.

Your landlord friend will have to check the terms of his buy to let mortgage and insurance to see if it permits benefit claimants as tenants.

PasturesNew

As a student she has to pay for her housing from her student grants/loans and part-time jobs/holiday jobs. You can't be a student and get housing benefit (LHA).

There are a lot of students that start the year, in a shared house, then leave the course or move out for a variety of reasons ... if she speaks to the Uni accommodation office and puts adverts round the campus she can probably get herself sorted quite quickly taking up one of these empty rooms. Those students will have signed an agreement to rent for the whole Uni year and will be liable to pay their rent whether they are using the room or not, until they can find a replacement.

Maybe there are some more student grants/loans she can apply for, that weren't relevant when she first applied as she was living with her boyfriend.