Local housing allowance (LHA) is a set amount of housing benefit paid if you are in private sector rented accommodation. What you get is based on where you live and who is in your household and is not necessarily the actual amount of rent you pay.
The scheme applies throughout the United Kingdom, but operates differently in Northern Ireland. You can find out information on the Northern Ireland system from the Department for Social Development website at www.dsdni.gov.uk.
LHA was originally a trial carried out in 18 areas (called pathfinder areas). It has been rolled out across Great Britain from 7 April 2008, but only for those who move or claim benefit after that date.
The actual allowance paid is subject to a means test, as with normal housing benefit (see Factsheet F44 - housing benefit) but the standard allowance is the same for everyone in the area, regardless of property size or the actual rent charged.
The government aim for LHA is to introduce a simpler system than the current one for HB and also to promote choice. You can choose between paying more to live in a larger property or decide to rent a property where the rent is lower than the LHA and keep the difference. However, the amount is restricted so that it can never be more than £15 above the rent you pay.
If your HB is less than your rent, even if you are entitled to maximum benefit, you are expected to make up any shortfall or seek cheaper accommodation.
The pathfinder areas are:
Argyll and Bute; Blackpool; Brighton and Hove; Conwy; Coventry; East Riding of Yorkshire; Edinburgh; Guildford; Leeds; London Borough of Lewisham; Northeast Lincolnshire; Norwich; Pembrokeshire; Salford; South Norfolk; St Helens; Teignbridge; Wandsworth.
The rules for pathfinder areas are different to those for the national roll out of LHA. If you live in one of these areas you will be covered by these old rules until 6 April 2009.
From 7 April 2008, if you are outside the pilot areas and in private sector rented accommodation, you will be moved onto LHA when you make a fresh claim or if you move address. At some point, possibly April 2009, everyone in private sector rented accommodation who claims housing benefit will be moved onto LHA.
LHA applies only to properties in the deregulated private sector. There are no plans to extend the scheme to tenants in social housing at present, although the government is looking at ways of ‘encouraging tenants to take greater personal responsibility for managing their own rent payments’. Currently LHA does not apply to:
Benefit for these properties will be calculated under the existing housing benefit scheme.
The amount of LHA is dependant on the number of rooms a claimant/claimant's family needs, the area where he or she lives, their income and savings and whether someone lives with them who is not a dependant.
The number of rooms that the tenant qualifies for (the size criteria) are one bedroom for every:
No other rooms are taken into account.
A Rent Officer will identify Broad Rental Market Areas (BRMAs) which are clearly definable by postcode and which contain a mix of accommodation.
Once these BRMAs have been allocated a LHA figure will be assigned, according to a set formula. Basically this will be an average rent for different sizes of accommodation.
This figure will be reviewed every month by the rent officer and notified to the Local Authority so that it can be made public for landlords and tenants to view. However once someone makes a claim for help with rent on a particular property an assessment will remain unchanged for a year.
If you are under 25 years old your LHA will be based on 1 bedroom in shared accommodation. This does not apply if you qualify for a severe disability premium, or if you are a care leaver aged under 22.
If you are over age 25 you are allowed the normal single bedroom rate unless you live in shared accommodation, in which case the rate for one bedroom shared accommodation is used.
If you have a partner, but no children, the rule is the same as that for claimant's over 25 years of age.
The rent will be paid to the tenant rather than the landlord, though there will be some safeguards for landlords to prevent non-payment by tenants. Direct payments will still be made to a landlord where the claimant is 8 weeks or more in arrears with the rent. The landlord will also receive payments where the tenant is unlikely to pay their rent, or where it is thought they will have difficulty in managing their affairs i.e. vulnerable. It will be up to the local authority to decide both of these criteria.
You can get help at a local advice centre, such as a citizen's advice bureau. You can get more information about this from our factsheet F15, Finding a local advice centre, which is available at http://www.disabilityalliance.org/f15.htm.
You can also find out more information about local housing allowance in Disability Alliance's Disability Rights Handbook, available to order at www.disabilityalliance.org/drh33.htm. This provides information about the different types of residential care, as well as charging for care.
You can obtain copies of our factsheets, or order our publications, by contacting Disability Alliance on 020 7247 8776 (voice and minicom) or by fax on 020 7247 8765.
The website http://lha-direct.therentservice.gov.uk/ has a number of LHA factsheets for you to download. It also has:
There is also information on the web about local housing allowance on the DWP website at www.dwp.gov.uk/housingbenefit/lha/. Your local authority may also provide information about local housing allowance on its own website.
April 2008
