Housing benefit and how to claim

Housing benefit amount depends on certain factors like how much do you earn, how and through which body you have rented your house/place of stay and your circumstances and how much you get as house benefit depends on the following:

1. How much you are eligible for, i.e. eligible rent?
2. How many spare bedrooms you have, if any?
3. What is your total household income?
4. What are your circumstances like age of people in the house etc.

Housing Benefit, although intends to help those who have to stay in a rented accommodation and are on low income, it does not has a fixed amount or a set amount applicable to all. This particular benefit is decided on case to case basis and considers factors like how much rent you have to pay, your income, your circumstances and how have you rented your house i.e. it has been rented privately or through a local council. With this benefit, you may or may not be able to cover all of your rent and other housing components. For example, charges like water charges, heating charges, lighting and cooking charges, payment of food and fuel are not covered under housing benefit scheme.

Is there any rent restriction applicable on the Housing Benefit?

Based on your personal income and your circumstances, you are eligible for a certain amount under housing benefit, also called as eligible rent, which may or may not cover your entire rent and the amount that you get could be lesser than the actual rent in case of a rent restriction. Rent restrictions and their nature play quite a vital role in deciding your amount of house benefit.

There are certain sections which are not eligible for the housing benefit, such as:

• Your savings or investments are above £16,000, unless you are entitled for pension credit.
• You stay with your close relative.
• You are a full time student, unless you are disabled or have children.
• You are staying in UK as an European Economic Area Jobseeker.
• You are an asylum seeker or sponsored to be in UK.
• You are subject to immigration control and your granted leaves state that you cannot claim public funds.

Once have all the details as mentioned above, you need to support your claim with documents like:

1. Current payslips. In case, you are paid on weekly basis, then you have to produce 5 recent payslips and in case you are paid on monthly basis, then you have to produce 2 recent payslips.
2. Details/relevant documents of your other source of income, if any, like shares, ISAs etc.
3. Your bank statements of last 2 months.
4. In case you have any non-dependants who is staying with you, you might be asked to submit proof of their income as well.
5. In case of contribution based jobseekers allowance, proof of your partner’s name and address will be required as well.

   For proof of address and name, you can provide any 2 of the following documents:

   1. UK photocard driving licence
   2. Current passport
   3. Birth or marriage certificate
   4. Biometric residence permit
   5. Certificate of registration or naturalisation
   6. Permanent residence card
   7. Letter from HMRC or the Home Office
   8. Recent utility bill
   9. Recent bank or building society statement
   10. Recent benefit award statements