housing benefit

BigAunty

pmlindyloo wrote: »

...



Your options are:

1. Negotiate with your landlord to try and reduce your rent.
2. Move to a cheaper property.
3. Ask about a discretionary housing payment.

4. Reduce your expenses
5. Up your income

If I've understood correctly, you've apparently to find £100 per month between the rent and the LHA so your other options are to decrease your outgoings and/or increase your income by approx £3 a day.

Obviously we don't know your income or expenses but general advice would be to download the MSE budget planner and visit the 'up your income' forum.

Work through the MSE site to identify where you can make savings by switching tariffs, reducing energy consumption, cheaper groceries, cheap recipes and so on. There is a huge amount of info on how to be ultra thrifty and frugal. For example, one mse member has published a website of recipes that feed a family of 4 for £100 per month for all meals.

pmlindyloo

I think your calculations are a bit off - don't worry, it might be good news!

HA = £144.23 per week Rent = £670 per month

HA £144.23 x 52 = £7499.96
£7499.96 divided by 12 = £624.99 So £624.99 per month

By my reckoning you will have to find £45.01 per month

Have done the calculations several times so hope I am right!


If you follow BigAunty's advice this should be achievable.

bargainbunny

Thanks I will def look into cutting expenses etc
Ive been doing this for a while now anyway ..I thought I was still under the 9 month rule but never mind I dont want to move as my children are settled here and although its not a great area its not the worst an personally id rather pay the £100 a month than move to the worse areas..
Problem is with paying that much I never be able to afford to move anyway and the rent deposit scheme is a joke as hardly any landlords accept it ..
The bedroom is small it does have a window but you couldnt get a single bed in it an be able to walk around so imo thats small..

thanks for all the help

dodger1

pmlindyloo wrote: »

I think your calculations are a bit off - don't worry, it might be good news!

HA = £144.23 per week Rent = £670 per month

HA £144.23 x 52 = £7499.96
£7499.96 divided by 12 = £624.99 So £624.99 per month

By my reckoning you will have to find £45.01 per month

Have done the calculations several times so hope I am right!


If you follow BigAunty's advice this should be achievable.

Your numbers are spot on.

bargainbunny

pmlindyloo wrote: »

I think your calculations are a bit off - don't worry, it might be good news!

HA = £144.23 per week Rent = £670 per month

HA £144.23 x 52 = £7499.96
£7499.96 divided by 12 = £624.99 So £624.99 per month

By my reckoning you will have to find £45.01 per month

Have done the calculations several times so hope I am right!


If you follow BigAunty's advice this should be achievable.

Hi thanks the overall annual calculation would be £45.01 month
but hb would be £576 and my rents £670 so monthly it be £94 to pay as i have to pay each month.. if that makes sense

pmlindyloo

bargainbunny wrote: »

Hi thanks the overall annual calculation would be £45.01 month
but hb would be £576 and my rents £670 so monthly it be £94 to pay as i have to pay each month.. if that makes sense

I understand what you're saying but every few months you would have extra money from the HB in your account.

If there are any LLs reading I wonder what their response would be to the suggestion that you ask your LL to accept 4 weekly rent to help with your budgetting.

Do go over to the Debt Free Wannabe forum. They will happily look at your income and outgoings and suggest ways to make this work.

BigAunty

bargainbunny wrote: »

..I thought I was still under the 9 month rule..

If any of the rate change was due to a change of occupancy, it takes effect then and there.

For some changes, there is the 9 month transitional protection. Explanation here.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/housing-benefit#changed

Here's a link on how to manage the change

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/housing-benefit#protect

BigAunty

bargainbunny wrote: »

Hi thanks the overall annual calculation would be £45.01 month
but hb would be £576 and my rents £670 so monthly it be £94 to pay as i have to pay each month.. if that makes sense

I think you are confused because the dates and periods that you receive your housing benefit, versus the monthly payment for your rent are out of date.

You seem to be rounding up your HB into monthly periods when it is weekly or fornightly. The problem with this is that there are 13 weeks in a quarter so if you use this method (assuming 4 weeks HB pays towards a month's rent), you forget about the 'extra' HB week every three months, hence don't account for an extra 4 weeks of HB in the cycle across the year.

I don't know if I've made this very clear in my explanation. Short way of saying this is you can't shouldn't measure 4 weeks HB against a months rent as overtime, they get very misaligned.

PMlindyloo has done the right thing by calculating your LHA and rent by working them out on a weekly basis, then finding out what you receive for each month and pay in rent each month. It may not take place that way in how you handle the actual timing of the payment, but by putting the rent and LHA on the same period of time (monthly) your real shortfall is identified, not the one in your head.

bargainbunny

ok thanks i do get what your saying its just i always do it that on 23rd of every month i pay £670.. some months i seem to have more some less
i wasnt sure why this was but when there was less i added to it and more i spent it:D
me bad...
£536.12 paid in this month hb, so ive got find £133.88 wow

BigAunty

bargainbunny wrote: »

ok thanks i do get what your saying its just i always do it that on 23rd of every month i pay £670.. some months i seem to have more some less
i wasnt sure why this was but when there was less i added to it and more i spent it:D
me bad...
£536.12 paid in this month hb, so ive got find £133.88 wow

Yes, so it appears afterall that you only have a modest shortfall between your LHA and your rent of about a tenner a week but lack discipline in budgeting for it, aggravated by the difference in the cycle of receiving LHA versus paying your rent.

Plus, of course, the repayment of your overpaid HB over the past 3 months.