Help with your housing costs

This page gives details on welfare benefits and other possible sources of financial help with your housing costs. It doesn't cover the full range of welfare benefits, but gives details at the end of where you can get advice on other benefits that you might be eligible for.

Housing benefit

You don't have to be out of work to claim housing benefit. You can also claim it if you are on a low income. It is available to people renting all or part of their home. So if you rent a flat from a council, housing association or private landlord, you might be able to get all of your rent paid by housing benefit. Housing benefit might also meet many of the service charges you have to pay. Examples include any amounts you have to pay towards caretaking, the costs of cleaning or heating communal areas, or gardening costs. It won't meet the costs of any meals provided by your landlord.

Housing Benefit isn't available to meet mortgage costs (but see Income Support below). But it can be claimed on the rent paid by people who buy a home through shared ownership.

If you rent a home from a private landlord, the housing benefit office will ask the Rent Officer to consider whether the rent you are being charged is too high, before they decide how much housing benefit they will pay you. To make their decision they will look at whether the rent is reasonable for other similar homes, whether the home is larger or more luxurious than you require, and how it compares to the rent charged for other homes in the local area. If the Rent Officer thinks that you are being charged too much, the Housing Benefit office will only pay for part of your rent.

If you are under 25 the Rent Officer will assume that you only require a single room in a shared house, and so will use the rents generally charged for that type of home to decide if you are being charged a reasonable rent. So, if you want to rent a one bedroom flat and are under 25, housing benefit is unlikely to meet all of your rent. The only exceptions to this are for:

• tenants of councils, housing associations or charities
• people caring for children
• people under 22 who were in the care of or looked after by Social services.

You can ask the Rent Officer for a decision on how much of the rent on a particular home can be paid by housing benefit before you sign up for a tenancy. This is called a 'Pre-tenancy determination'.

You cannot usually claim housing benefit if you are a full-time student (unless you are disabled or have children). You may also have difficulties if you are from abroad or have recently returned from living abroad. Most asylum seekers or people sponsored to live in this country are unable to claim housing benefit. If you have over £16,000 in savings you will be unable to claim. You cannot usually get housing benefit if you live in the home of a close relative.

When assessing if you need housing benefit to meet your housing costs, both your own income and that of your partner will be taken into account. A partner is your husband or wife, or anyone that you live with as if they were your husband or wife.

Housing Benefit is paid in arrears and it can take several weeks for your claim to be processed by the council. Many private landlords are unwilling to wait for your housing benefit to be approved before they get their rent paid, and for that reason are reluctant to rent to people on housing benefit. Your local housing advice centre should be able to tell you which private landlords will take people on housing benefit.

If you are currently living in a hostel or temporary supported housing, your support worker or resettlement worker should be able to give you an idea of how much housing benefit you might be able to get towards the rent of your next home. If not, let them know that they can download a housing benefit calculator for free by clicking on www.mungos.org.uk.

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Income Support towards mortgage costs

If you are a homeowner you can sometimes claim income support (IS) or income based job seekers allowance (JSA(IB)) towards your housing costs.

There are specific qualifying conditions, which must be met. For IS a person must be either a lone parent, sick or disabled or of pension age; for JSA(IB) a person must be unemployed and actively seeking work. Both IS and JSA(IB) are means tested benefits and your income and savings will be taken into account when calculating benefit entitlement. IS for those aged over 60 is known as Minimum Income Guarantee.

From October 1995 waiting periods were introduced before mortgage costs could be paid. For loans taken out after October 1995, a waiting period of 39 weeks was introduced. Loans taken before 1995, or by people who are "vulnerable", are treated differently and a reduced waiting period applies. For these types of claims help with payment of 50% of your housing costs is available after 8 weeks, increasing to 100% after 27 weeks. Pensioners in receipt of Minimum Income Guarantee, (Pension Credit from October 2003) have their housing costs paid from the outset of their claim.

Help is provided towards mortgage interest payments only. No help can be provided for arrears payments, capital repayments, endowment policies, premiums or ISAs or PEPS. Mortgage interest payments are calculated on a Standard Interest Rate, and loans can only be met to a maximum of £100,000 unless certain specific conditions are met.

Help can only be provided towards loans taken out to acquire an interest in the dwelling occupied as your home, and specific home improvement loans taken out in order to maintain the dwelling fit for human habitation.

Further information can be obtained from your local benefit office. Details of its location can be found by clicking on www.dwp.gov.uk.

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The Social Fund

The Social Fund is administered by the Benefits agency. It can provide a grant or loan towards your housing costs. But you are not guaranteed to get one. The types of things that can be claimed for include furniture, repairs and adaptations. You will need to demonstrate that the grant or loan will help you do at least one of the following:

• settle into the community after a stay in residential or institutional care (which might include a prison, children's home, hospital, or care home)
• remain in the community
• resettle into the community after an unsettled way of life (which should include a period of rough sleeping or staying in hostels or squats) as part of a planned programme of support
• ease exceptional pressure on you or your family
• allow you to care for a prisoner or young offender on temporary release
• for travel costs in certain circumstances.

Generally old or disabled people, people with mental health problems and young people who have left local authority care are considered a high priority. People who have misused drugs or alcohol, ex-offenders, and homeless people tend to be medium to low priority. It can be very helpful to include a supporting letter from someone like a support worker or social worker with your application.

The amount you can get for a Community Care Grant varies. If you are applying for a grant for furnishing a new flat you might want to ask your support worker (if you have one) for help to make sure that you don't miss anything out.

A budgeting loan of up to £1000 can also be applied for. You can sometimes get these to pay for an advance payment of rent required by your new landlord. The obvious disadvantage with a loan is that it has to be repaid. They are interest free loans, however, and will be cheaper than getting a loan from somewhere else.

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Rent deposit schemes

For information about organisations that might be able to help you pay a rent deposit or rent in advance to a landlord click on Rent deposit schemes.

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Charities

There are a number of local and national charities that are willing to give grants to people for furniture or other housing costs. If you have a social worker or support worker they should be able to give you advice about which charities it might be worth applying to.

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Furniture projects

Many charities or housing associations run furniture projects that can provide second hand or renovated furniture at no cost to people moving into a new home.

For furniture projects in London see www.homelesslondon.org.uk

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Where to get more information:

For more advice on benefits click on:

• www.dwp.gov.uk/lifeevent/benefits, or
• www.adviceguide.org.uk

For the address of your local benefits office click on www.dwp.gov.uk/localoffice

Other advice can be obtained from your support officer, resettlement officer or social worker (if you have one) or local housing advice or citizen's advice bureau (CAB). For the address of your local CAB click on www.nacab.org.uk/cabdir.

For housing advice centres in London click on www.homelesslondon.org.uk.

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Click on these links to reach different parts of the website:
Private renting - Council or housing association - Buying your own home
Hostels - Jobs with accommodation - Moving out of London
What's right for me? - Help - Contacts & info - Go back to the start