Housing Benefit and moving to cheaper rental area?

Murphybear

I think the whole area of LHA, affordable properties and percentiles is a bit of a shambles.

I am fortunate to live in a part of the country where are no big cities and very few totally undesirable areas. I put a search on Rightmove and found the following.

Single person over 25 entitled to £417 PCM. Approx 50% of properties around that price or less

2 sharers both claiming LHA could afford 50% of properties. By topping up the rent by less than £25 they could find a really beautiful 2 bedroomed place or a 3 bedroomed house.

Still the same problem though of "no DSS", even well established agents say this, they should know better.

MissAdventure

BigAunty wrote: »

AFAIK, a household gets a set LHA rate based on their composition (age/sex/number of occupants) that determines how many bedrooms they are entitled to and are free to live in smaller or bigger properties than that. If the rent is cheaper than the LHA, it is capped at the rent, if the rent is dearer than their LHA they must pay the top-up themselves.

Therefore, if they were entitled to £200 a week for a 3 bedroom but decided to live in a 2 bed property costing £190, they would receive £190. If they decided they wanted to live in a 4 bedroom property costing £300 a week, they'd need to pay that extra £100 shortfall out of their employment income/JSA/income support, tax credits, child maintenance and so on.

Ok, I assumed it worked the same way as the shared accommodation rate, but I see its different.

I know that if you are entitled to the 1 bedroom rate, (for example £600) but choose to lived in shared accommodation (e.g £350)...you only get the shared accommodation LHA rate (e.g £300).

BigAunty wrote: »

Rightmove mainly deals with self-contained properties (studios, 1 beds and so forth) and not shared properties (i.e. individual room rentals). The shared accommodation rate tends to cover room rental in a shared property rather than an entire property itself. Rightmove doesn't have that many ads for sharers because it's expensive to advertise on.

Sharers tend to look on websites like the Gumtree, Spare room and similar.

Even then, most landlords don't want HB claimants, nor students for that matter.

Plenty of house shares on rightmove in my area, Spare room only has a few people, mostly looking for lodgers in family homes, and only the really dodgy ones only advertise on Gumtree... so my experiences differ from yours in that regard.

I agree that lot of landlords don't want HB claimants, but there are plenty round here who cater to being student landlords (they make much more money that way).

MissAdventure

Murphybear wrote: »

I think the whole area of LHA, affordable properties and percentiles is a bit of a shambles.

I am fortunate to live in a part of the country where are no big cities and very few totally undesirable areas. I put a search on Rightmove and found the following.

Single person over 25 entitled to £417 PCM. Approx 50% of properties around that price or less

2 sharers both claiming LHA could afford 50% of properties. By topping up the rent by less than £25 they could find a really beautiful 2 bedroomed place or a 3 bedroomed house.

Still the same problem though of "no DSS", even well established agents say this, they should know better.

I think you must mean over 35? i.e. the one bedroom rate? (people under 35 just get the shared rate). There is no 'over 25 rate'.

And if two single people are sharing they also only get the shared accommodation rate, not the full 1 bedroom rate, so you can't just combine with someone to get a 'really beautiful' place.

Would be curious to know what part of the country you are in?

BigAunty

MissAdventure wrote: »

But you are no more or less likely to be on the upper end of your LHA entitlement in a higher or lower LHA area. (as an aside I've pretty much never seen rents that were actually less than the LHA for an area). And if 'being forced to move when the rent goes up' is 'catastophic' then my life has been full of catastrophes

.

It wasn't clear that were cared solely about your situation, shared room rate for under 35s. It seemed to me you were querying in general how LHA was calculated in general terms for everyone and if any tenant could move to a better area and get better quality accommodation or if the rates were too variable.

Moving house is stressful. For some tenants, due to the LHA and benefit cuts, they are leaving their long-term homes. For others who are sick/disabled, they are forced them move away from their support networks such as medical centres, family, friends. Those in employment may end up moving much further away from their employers which increases the commuting time and costs. Those with kids may be forced to change schools. They may very well consider it to be a greater hardship than you do.

If you've had your benefit entitlement questions answered, I suggest you post your reservations about the LHA calculations and refusal for landlords to accept HB claimants on the Discussion Board forum which is where general policies are debated.

MissAdventure

BigAunty wrote: »

It wasn't clear that were cared solely about your situation, shared room rate for under 35s. It seemed to me you were querying in general how LHA was calculated in general terms for everyone and if any tenant could move to a better area and get better quality accommodation or if the rates were too variable.

I actually asked if a tenant could move to a 'worse' area and get better quality accommodation, not a better one.

My original post used the example of a single under 35 year old and asked if they could better their situation by moving area.

I have no idea why you assume that is my situation.

BigAunty wrote: »

Moving house is stressful. For some tenants, due to the LHA and benefit cuts, they are leaving their long-term homes. For others who are sick/disabled, they are forced them move away from their support networks such as medical centres, family, friends. Those in employment may end up moving much further away from their employers which increases the commuting time and costs. Those with kids may be forced to change schools. They may very well consider it to be a greater hardship than you do.

Oh, I agree moving house all the time is not easy. I felt calling it 'catastrophic' was a bit of an exaggeration, and certainly for me (someone for whom a mortgage is likely to always be prohibitively expensive on my income) house moving due to rising costs is simply a fact of life.

As far as I can see, you will always be at risk of having to move if you are a private tenant relying on housing benefit at all, no matter what area you choose to live in, so its not really relevant to the discussion.

BigAunty wrote: »

If you've had your benefit entitlement questions answered, I suggest you post your reservations about the LHA calculations and refusal for landlords to accept HB claimants on the Discussion Board forum which is where general policies are debated.

My "reservations about the LHA calculations and refusal for landlords to accept HB claimants" ?? Both of those are points you brought to the thread, not me.

I'm simply curious if there are places where LHA rate includes more favourable properties, and if moving area is a helpful option for someone who is going to be on HB for the ongoing future.