Universal Credit - Housing aspect?

Lwag

Hi I hope someone can clarify this for me please. At the moment my family are living rent free with family, but we are looking to get our own house via private rental (As there isn't any council-houses which we are immediately eligible for). We do have Universal Credit, however we only currently get around £13.00 per month Universal Credit plus extra in Child Benefit - All in all less than £20.30.00 per month.
This is I think because my wife is on Maternity Allowance (As she was not eligible for Statutory Maternity Pay) and because this is classed as a "Benefit" in and of itself it takes a chunk of what we would be eligible for should she be back in work and paid by her employer. She isn't due to come off Maternity Allowance until November time.
Here is a break down of our finances and situation at the moment:
Myself: £1,200.00 per month wage
Wife: £99.00 Maternity Allowance (£221.00 FORTNIGHT wage when under employment)
1x Child under 12 months old

What you're entitled to
Standard allowance
You get a standard amount each month. You said you're in a couple
£594.04
Children
You get support for 1 child
£235.83
Total entitlement before deductions
£829.87
What we take off (deductions)
Take-home pay
Take-home pay is what's left after tax, National Insurance and any pension contributions have been deducted.
*Wife
Take-home pay breakdown for *Wife
The amount we'll use to work out your Universal Credit is £0.00
*Myself
Take-home pay breakdown for *Myself
Earnings reported by your employer £1,133.11
The amount we'll use to work out your Universal Credit is £1,133.11
The total take-home pay for *Wife and *Myself this period is £1,133.11
The first £512.00 of your take-home pay doesn't affect your Universal Credit monthly amount. Every £1.00 you earn in take-home pay over this amount reduces your Universal Credit by 63 pence.
‑ £391.30
Other benefits
We take money off your payment
As this is an average of other benefits that you're continuing to claim
*Wife:
Maternity Allowance
‑ £418.30
Total deductions
‑ £809.60
Your total payment for this month is
£20.27

We are looking to move out for ourselves in the next few months - Looking at the Local Housing Allowance we are going to have rates of £115.00 per week in this area for a two bedroom property. This would work out at £460.00 per month with any extra I assume covered by ourselves, but making the jump to getting a property without knowing if we're going to be eligible for the Housing aspect of it is a cause for concern. We are potentially looking at  £650-700.00 per month properties which according to my budget calculator, should we be eligible for housing we would be well within safely. However without the Housing we would be potentially struggling to sub-£600.00 properties (Which in this area they are not very nice).

We just have to await until November when my wife does go back into employment which I hope will make the world of difference for us.

Spoonie_Turtle

The LHA rate for your family situation (2-bedroom) in your area will be added to your current maximum UC entitlement. The amount would be added into the 'What you're entitled to' bit.

Your work allowance would go from £512 to £292 if you started claiming help with housing costs.

So yes, you would be entitled, but you would have to work out how much would be left after slightly higher deductions than are taken now because of the lower work allowance. (Only affects earnings, not unearned income e.g. MA.)

WillGoodfellow

Use a benefit calculator and input scenarios to find out what you will be entitled to, now with maternity allowance, and when your wife returns to work:

https://benefits-calculator.turn2us.org.uk/AboutYou

calcotti

Lwag said: Looking at the Local Housing Allowance we are going to have rates of £115.00 per week in this area for a two bedroom property. This would work out at £460.00 per month 

No it would not. A month has more than 4 weeks in it. £115/week is £498.33/month (115 x 52 / 12).

Lwag

Oh I see! That is fine and works out well I guess.
I have run through some calculators and they do give varying numbers - While both of us are employed it works out at £700-800.00 in Universal Credit/Child Benefits. However if we put Maternity Allowance in to the equation this drops to around £400.00 monthly in Universal Credit.
Would I be right (Or entirely wrong then) in thinking that should we both be back in employment our "Take home"-wage from work collectively would be around £1,600.00 per month. Would any Universal Credit top this up by £500.00 per month giving us around £2,000.00 monthly income, or would it only give a barely negligable increase on our income monthly?
I don't after all want to set ourselves up on a £700.00 a month rent agreement with private tenants assuming we get a big chunk of Universal Credit, if we're more realistically going to have to set ourselves on around £550-600.00 per month rent.

**As an aside to this. I did speak to an estate agent not long ago about Housing Benefit and the like. I was almost immediately shut down saying X-Tenant does not allow/accept Housing Benefit tenants (Which I thought myself was against the law but I guess they decide..?) could you just negate to declare this on any housing application especially if it is paid direct to you?

poppy12345

My calculations are based on housing element being £498 per month and earnings together are £1,600, then your UC per month will be about £500. Do be aware also that UC standard allowance has been increased by about £90 per month because of Covid19. This is expected to return to it's normal amount in April 2021. (unless they change their mind)

Yes, landlords and those claiming benefits don't mix and a lot of them will refuse you. Do you need to tell your landlord? no but it could invalidate their insurance if you don't tell them and something happens. Would i keep it from them? No, definitely not because i wouldn't sleep through worry. Honesty is the best policy always because it could come back and bite you sometime in the future.

Also renting a property could also depend on affordability and would they agree to you being a tenant on £1,600 wages with rent being as much as £700?

Caz3121

Lwag said:

 could you just negate to declare this on any housing application especially if it is paid direct to you?

I suspect you would then fail on the affordability checks
you could use this calculator as a guide https://rentright.co.uk/calcrent/

calcotti

poppy12345 said: Yes, landlords and those claiming benefits don't mix and a lot of them will refuse you. Do you need to tell your landlord? no but it could invalidate their insurance if you don't tell them and something happens. Would i keep it from them? No, definitely not because i wouldn't sleep through worry. Honesty is the best policy always because it could come back and bite you sometime in the future. 

OP is right though that refusing to rent to those on benefits is indeed illegal and Shelter have recently won two court case she confirming this. https://blog.shelter.org.uk/2018/11/stop-dss-discrimination-live-blog/
The courts appears to have taken the view that it is no business of a landlord where a tenant gets their money from. In this contextual it is difficult to see how insurers can include clauses seeking to prevent a landlord letting to a benefits claimant. Indeed Shelter says that most no longer do.
https://england.shelter.org.uk/support_us/campaigns/dss

Stamping out DSS discrimination in the buy-to-let mortgage industry
Many landlords used to have terms in their mortgages which prevented them letting to tenants receiving housing benefit. We’ve convinced many banks, including NatWest, Metro Bank, Co-op and more to remove DSS restrictions from their mortgage terms. Now all major players have removed them, and mortgage terms are no longer a barrier for landlords letting to tenants who receive benefits

Spoonie_Turtle

Lwag said:

Would I be right (Or entirely wrong then) in thinking that should we both be back in employment our "Take home"-wage from work collectively would be around £1,600.00 per month. Would any Universal Credit top this up by £500.00 per month giving us around £2,000.00 monthly income, or would it only give a barely negligable increase on our income monthly?
I don't after all want to set ourselves up on a £700.00 a month rent agreement with private tenants assuming we get a big chunk of Universal Credit, if we're more realistically going to have to set ourselves on around £550-600.00 per month rent.

Remember when your wife is back at work they will deduct 63% of her earnings, rather than the 100% they deduct for her MA. So the deduction will be (your combined wage - £292) x 63%, if claiming housing costs.

You can do the exact calculation yourself using the elements you currently receive, plus the housing calcotti worked out, minus that deduction for your exact wages.

poppy12345

calcotti said:

poppy12345 said: Yes, landlords and those claiming benefits don't mix and a lot of them will refuse you. Do you need to tell your landlord? no but it could invalidate their insurance if you don't tell them and something happens. Would i keep it from them? No, definitely not because i wouldn't sleep through worry. Honesty is the best policy always because it could come back and bite you sometime in the future. 

OP is right though that refusing to rent to those on benefits is indeed illegal and Shelter have recently won two court case she confirming this. https://blog.shelter.org.uk/2018/11/stop-dss-discrimination-live-blog/
The courts appears to have taken the view that it is no business of a landlord where a tenant gets their money from. In this contextual it is difficult to see how insurers can include clauses seeking to prevent a landlord letting to a benefits claimant. Indeed Shelter says that most no longer do.
https://england.shelter.org.uk/support_us/campaigns/dss

Stamping out DSS discrimination in the buy-to-let mortgage industry
Many landlords used to have terms in their mortgages which prevented them letting to tenants receiving housing benefit. We’ve convinced many banks, including NatWest, Metro Bank, Co-op and more to remove DSS restrictions from their mortgage terms. Now all major players have removed them, and mortgage terms are no longer a barrier for landlords letting to tenants who receive benefits

I totally agree and after being totally refused, being told a simple "no" and completely blanked more times than i would like to remember in the past. This still doesn't mean a tenant should keep it from the landlord that they are claiming benefits. I genuinely would never sleep through all the stress and worry and for me, it's just not worth it.

*Edited* to add, the letting agency also ask for bank statements, how are you supposed to hide the benefits payments that go into the bank?

Lwag

Many thanks for responses - In terms of bank statements strangely - I did apply for a house several weeks ago (Which was the low end in terms of rental cost). The landlord (Which was a company/entrepreneur asked for bank statements. I sent them in but because it contained a lot of otherwise personal purchases which I felt was not of relevance to them, I redacted them out entirely so they could not view it. They accepted my application and did offer me the property but I had to cancel it. I don't know if other estate agents/landlords would be similar to that...
I did on the flipside include my Clearscore credit rating which was excellent, whether this pulled them in enough to offer me the property?
I do have to wonder - Why would there be any issue (Such as guilt/lack of sleep) for not declaring if you are on Housing Benefit however? In my own budgets I have created I did take into account having to possibly take out a house insurance if even for contents amongst other things but if that is the landlord responsibility then so be it, of course an insurance would be a necessity.
I did have a quick check of the Rent Affordability calculator which had an annual income of £20,000 - It says we would be looking at around £650.00 per month rental. 
About the Universal Credit amount - It still feels off, but using these sums it still works out "right" and it is massively confusing.
"Remember when your wife is back at work they will deduct 63% of her earnings, rather than the 100% they deduct for her MA. So the deduction will be (your combined wage - £292) x 63%, if claiming housing costs"
£1,240 (My wage) + £443.00 (Wife wage) per month = Total £1,683 per month
£1683 - £292 = £1,391 (x63%) = £876.00.
So does this £876.00 work out as being the Universal Credit amount (Thus ADDED to our monthly wage combined)? So £1,683 + £876.00? It just seems like a high amount. Hm!