Reapplying for housing benefit

Spoonie_Turtle

itsthelittlethings said:

SnowWhiterThanWhite said:

Have you checked whether she's entitled to pension credit? If she is, she would get her rent & council tax paid for her (regardless of capital)

I thought you couldn’t get pension credit if you had large amounts of capital?

Depends on their level of income - for pension credit, capital over £10,000 will see a deduction of £1 for every £500 (or part thereof) above 10k per week.  So if someone's income is very low they could still get some PC even if they have a substantial deduction for larger amounts of capital.

Just rereading, the capital in this case is around/below £16,000 so yeah, no problem qualifying for pension credit if their income is below £215.10/week (for a standard single person without any entitlement to additional premiums; that amount can potentially be much higher depending on someone's circumstances).

playlister82

itsthelittlethings said:

SnowWhiterThanWhite said:

Have you checked whether she's entitled to pension credit? If she is, she would get her rent & council tax paid for her (regardless of capital)

I thought you couldn’t get pension credit if you had large amounts of capital?

You're allowed to have savings but she has a small private pension (about £100 a month) on top of state pension which disqualifies her from pension credit.

Anyway we re-applied for her housing benefit about 2 weeks ago now when her savings dropped back below the threshold. No response yet and she is obviously worried. Does anyone know how long it usually takes for housing benefit applications to be processed? I thought it was quicker in the past.

KxMx

It will vary between local authorities so no one can answer that here unfortunately. 

You would need to enquire with local council hb department as to waiting times.

Robbie64

Legally, councils are suppose to make a determination on HB within 14 days of receiving all information. In practice, it depends on backlogs.