The amount a claimant receives in housing benefit is based upon the local housing allowance rate. This rate is calculated every month by the rent officer assessing non housing benefit rents within the local area and calculating the 30 percentile of those rents. This provides a monthly figure. As market rents rise (or fall) so, does the LHA rate. Once a claimant tenant is on housing benefit, the rate remains the same for the claimant for up to...

Almost nine out of ten (87%) landlords who accept housing benefit tenants have had problems with rent not being paid on time, with one in ten (11%) saying they have had tenants who stopped paying their rent altogether.   Out of all landlords, more than half (59%) stipulate no housing benefit tenants in their advertisements.The astonishing results emerge from a survey of over 1,000 UK landlords, conducted by flat and house share website...

Councils and housing associations to test direct payments of housing cost support Local authority and housing association partnerships are named as the successful volunteers the Government plans to work with on pioneering demonstration projects that will see claimants in the social rented sector directly receiving monthly housing benefit payments and paying rent to landlords themselves for the first time. The demonstration projects, which will...

Almost 800,000 homes will become off limits to benefit claimants relying on housing benefit to pay the rent because of government cuts to the local housing allowance that begin in January, according to research by the Chartered Institute of Housing and the Guardian. According to the report, for the first time more people on benefits will be chasing homes than the market currently provides. The study shows in many parts of the country there will...

The Department of Work and Pensions has issued a new Local Housing Allowance Guidance Manual to all local authority staff who deal with housing benefit. After having a quick glance through, it seems there are no major changes except of course to add information about the changes that took effect earlier this month. The other important stuff like 8 weeks arrears and payments to landlords generally remains ...