Will moving house affect my ESA?

Joe99

@poppy12345

Hi sorry if I’ve made it sound confusing. Basically my mums house is £115 per week, she receives £85 a week housing benefit, even though I’m currently entitled to £85 a week myself, they only pay £30 a week for me at the moment to bounce it up to £115 for the rent every week. They are not going to pay my mum and me £85 a week HB each if the rent is only £115 a week as they would then be overpaying us.

Fantastic, I just suffer with bad anxiety and like to make sure before I actually go ahead and make the change. So I ring up my local council, tell them I’ve moved, give them my new address and bring in my tenancy agreement to them for them to scan on the system?

Then straight after I will ring ESA then PIP to inform them I’ve moved into a 2 bedroom house with my friend and made the change with my council as well. Because I’m still living independently on my own, my HB pays my share of the rent and my friend tops up her share of the rent. 

I’m only going to be in a house share because I trust my friend and I wouldn’t live in a flat in a shared building due to not trusting strangers in regards to my mental health it would make me feel scared and worse in myself.

Would ESA and PIP be straightforward to do the address change over the phone then? I’m just scared they will ask loads of questions in regards to my friend and the house share etc as I have really bad anxiety. Would my local council pay the full £340 a month HB for me?

Example, say if a 2 bedroom house is £125 a week, that works out at £541.66 per calendar month, would my council pay me the full £340 and my friend pays £201.66 towards the rent or would I only be paid 50%, so I’d receive £270.83 instead of £340?

Thank you

Spoonie_Turtle

You can find out your Local Housing Allowance rate here: https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/ the one bedroom rate is the maximum they will pay you, for your own individual claim.

calcotti

As advised several times, if you rent privately your Housing Benefit will be the one bedroom Local Housing Allowance rate for the post code of your new address or the actual rent you are liable for, whichever is less. You will be treated as liable for half the joint rent.