entitlement

cheeky123_2

Hi
Does anybody know what is the criteria for help with housing benefit? I'm a single parent with two children and work 24 hours per week and would like to rent a property but not sure if I'm entitled to any help?
Thanks

Indie_Kid

It depends on your LHA rate and how much money you have coming in. Child maintenance is ignored.

Jowo_2

You can identify the maximum LHA for the size of property you are entitled to (you can live in any size but the age/sex of the children will determine if you get the 2 or 3 bedroom rate) on the LHA Direct website. You can identify how your salary impacts the maximum rate, plus see if you are missing out on any benefits, on the Turn2us online benefit calculator.

Remember that there are changes planned in the future that could impact rates of LHA as the govt are planning to reduce the LHA bill as it has almost doubled over the last decade or so to £20 billion plus. I think the main one that could affect you are plans to change calculating the LHA rates by identifying the bottom third of local market rents as it is now set at the average or middle of local market rents. Therefore some rates are dropping.