Why are LHA rates dropping when rent is increasing?

Viberduo

Is it just another way to cut the spend?

I ask because I noticed my LHA payment last month was lower, I then found out they decreased it by £3 a week!!!, I googled around and found it was similar for around Scotland(I assume England and Wales too)

Yet in my area alone neither the shared rate or the 1 bed rate covers what they are there for i.e all flatshares are like £12 at least more than the LHA rate though they may get out of that by saying that includes bills but the 1 bedroom rate would mean you top up £5-£15 a week which is a lot if you are in a bad situation

I just do not understand why it has gone down when rents have either stayed the same or gone up since that causes a lot of poverty.

Old_Git

its to encourage people to get off benefits .
Its also assumed some LL will take the hit and accept less rent .

And its tax payers money not yours

Viberduo

Old_Git wrote: »

its to encourage people to get off benefits .
Its also assumed some LL will take the hit and accept less rent .

Oh you mean the governments idea of "encourage" as in they think there is more jobs than applicants instead of the other way round lol.

My area has high unemployment due to being a holiday area i.e only holiday parks hire from Feb to October at minimum wage and no big factories etc and only about 5 call centres in entire region.

I only was thinking about it as I wanted to move to get a job and found out somewhere I wanted to live has had its LHA cut by £9 in the last 2 years for shared rate and about £13 for 1 bed rate and its rent has increased in the middle class areas and stayed the same in poor areas(so you can just about afford it)

Old_Git

the system stinks but thats the way it is .

Viberduo

I agree, instead of cutting benefits they should HELP people get into work rather than cut benefits and funding for courses that help them like they did with me, wont go into detail but a few years ago shortly after conservatives came into power they cut funding for a course I went out of my way to find approved by JC that gave me a full time job over the minimum wage that would be full time upon completion of a 3 month course.

Oh well

moneyistooshorttomention

It's part of a series of cuts imposed on housing benefit.

I was unemployed many years ago now, whilst still living in rented accommodation. At that point in time, as long as I was adult age (meaning "adult age" and not "25 or over") I would get paid the full rent whatever level it was set at. I was in a flatlet at the time but, as I recall, I would still have received the full rent even if I had been in a 2 or 3 bedroom flat or house.

Then they started cutting. I cant recall all the cuts or the order of them, but amongst them were:

- refusing to pay rent for a bigger place than they deemed you need (ie so I wouldn't have received more than a 1 bedroom flat level anyway)

- not paying full rent unless you were 25 or over

- only paying rent that fell within the average rental range, and that has been subsequently amended to the lowest third of rents

- I think??? that even people 25-34 are now not allowed to even have 1 bedroom flats (ie are only given enough for a room in a shared house)??

- having to pay a bit of Council Tax out of personal benefit

Those are just the cuts I remember. There may well be others I have forgotten, as one of the reasons I was desperate to turn being a "home-owner" into actually owning a home of my own was because I could see which way the wind was blowing and feared that, if I became unemployed again, I wouldn't be given enough to cover my rent.

dodger1

My LHA rates have stayed the same for three years, better than going down of course.

Thrugelmir

Viberduo wrote: »

I agree, instead of cutting benefits they should HELP people get into work rather than cut benefits l

Cutting benefits is the consequence of living beyond ones means. The welfare state is unsustainable and unaffordable bin its current form. Unfortunately politicians of all parties are more interested in being in power than telling the truth. With a general election a year away.

moneyistooshorttomention

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Cutting benefits is the consequence of living beyond ones means. The welfare state is unsustainable and unaffordable bin its current form. Unfortunately politicians of all parties are more interested in being in power than telling the truth. With a general election a year away.

You are quite possibly correct, but the upshot of that is that people who genuinely need certain benefits (eg because of circumstances not of their doing - like single and having been made unemployed) suffer because of those who claim benefits down to personal circumstances of their own choosing. There isn't enough available in the kitty for both those landed in trouble and those who land themselves in trouble and unfortunately that does tend to mean those who "landed in trouble" suffering in order to keep the money supply up for those who "landed themselves in it".

First person to think of a way to make those who land themselves in it be more responsible should be up for a darn big payout for thinking of it...:cool:

PasturesNew

Have you checked the BMRA map? You say "in my area", but the rate has its own boundaries - and maybe you're in one of the posher parts of the overall area.

My BMRA area is about 20 miles wide.

Maybe rents in shabby areas have gone down a lot.

Viberduo

PasturesNew wrote: »

Have you checked the BMRA map? You say "in my area", but the rate has its own boundaries - and maybe you're in one of the posher parts of the overall area.

My BMRA area is about 20 miles wide.

Maybe rents in shabby areas have gone down a lot.

Interesting but in my town I have only ever known 1 cheap area that is so popular that flats if they come available go straight away so they likely have this 1 cheap area(full of crime and I mean murders, drug dealers etc) The area I live in now is about 1/4 posh houses and other 3/4 council flats though many have been bought from the council, it is a generic place with flats everywhere, and I have never seen flats available in my town below £350 bar a few unfurnished studio properties around £320 and when I say studio I am in a small flat now and its half the size of what I have so had zero wardrobes as no room and kitchen is also the hallway!

And as I live in a area which has a lot of care homes as it has a lot of nice scenery and many people retire here rents are more expensive, if I was paying £80 a week for a flat here 8 years ago yet the LHA is under £80 for the area for a 1 bedroom property how can they work that out as normal, the actual average is about £360 id say and I have never seen a flat share below £75 a week yet LHA is only £60

As for other areas I am going by googleing on gumtree, agents in other towns, adverts in local papers and only in the poorest areas like the worst parts of Glasgow you can get cheap rent even then I have seen some of the worst areas also have flats STARTING at £300 when LHA is like £70 for the shared rate.

It may be that there is a increase in studio flats that rent cheaper than a normal size flat so they have been added to the average therefore they can say there is flats available for close to the LHA even if they are so small its like 1 room(some of the studio flats are smaller than bedsits I have lived in!)