tenancy agreement and housing benefit

d**

Hi, I'm renting a room at a friends house and now need to claim housing benefit and the housing benefit people have said that i need to provide a tenancy agreement. would a letter from him saying that i rent a room and how much i pay each week? be ok? or what should we do?

Caz3121

d** wrote: »

Hi, I'm renting a room at a friends house and now need to claim housing benefit and the housing benefit people have said that i need to provide a tenancy agreement. would a letter from him saying that i rent a room and how much i pay each week? be ok? or what should we do?

how have you been paying rent up to now? is it a fixed agreed payment? In your other thread you were homeless but staying with a friend and giving them a little money towards bills, is this the same amount you are looking to claim?

Also your friend may have issues if you declare you have been living there for x months whilst they were claiming single persons discount on council tax

pmlindyloo

d** wrote: »

Hi, I'm renting a room at a friends house and now need to claim housing benefit and the housing benefit people have said that i need to provide a tenancy agreement. would a letter from him saying that i rent a room and how much i pay each week? be ok? or what should we do?

Usually on the form you complete for housing benefit there is a check list of information/evidence that you have to include.

In this example
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/claimforms/hctb1_print.pdf

it says - tenancy agreement/rent book/rent receipts/letter from landlord.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

A letter will be fine - to include date started renting room, location of room, rent charged, if any services included in rent (i.e utility bills, laundry, food etc).

d**

Hi thank you .. yes my circumstances are the same i have been homeless but now staying with a friend for a while .. I had some money and gave it to them as some rent but now we have decided to formalise the arrangement so that i can claim JSA and to use the address to find a job. I put in a claim for HB so that i could help them out with some money for putting me up. but i was worried because they seemed to want a formal agreement and it just hasn't happened like that. I will try a letter from them and see if the HB accept that. Although we may have problems because they have been claiming single persons discount on the coucil tax up until now (but that was because it was only a temporary arrangement with me stopping with them) they work so don't claim any other benefits .