Who will LHA apply to? LHA is for people claiming Housing Benefit for the first time, or moving home after 7th April 2008. They must be on a low income, with savings below £16,000, and living in private rented accommodation

Who will LHA not apply to? There are several groups who will not be affected by LHA.
They are:
Local Authority tenants
Housing Association Tenants
People who have a tenancy that started before 1989
People who live in a caravan, mobile home, house boat or hostel
Protected cases. i.e. receive substantial care, support or supervision
People who receive substantial board and lodgings
People who are already in receipt of Housing Benefit

How is LHA worked out? LHA isn’t based on the amount of rent that is paid but the area the tenant lives in, which is known as a ‘Broad Rental Market Area’ (BRMA), and the number of rooms required by the household. These figures will be supplied by the Rent Office every month.

BRMA – This is the area used to set the level of LHA for a property with a certain number of rooms. This is worked out by taking a wide range of properties and tenancy types from a number of neighbourhoods.
In this area there will be a wide mix of property types within a reasonable distance of various public amenities such as health, education, recreation, personal banking and shopping. This will not take into account any rents from this area that are unusually high or low.
From the information that is collected the figure that is at the mid-point of these rents will be the figure that is used as the LHA. Rent officers will continually monitor the local rent market and update the LHA figures for each BRMA every month.
The local Housing Benefit office will be advised of these every month and people will be able to see which BRMA a property falls into and how much they could expect to receive.

Size Criteria – The number of rooms allowed is as follows:

One bedroom for each of the following (counting each person only once in the first group they come into).

A couple
Someone who is 16 or over
Two children of the same sex up to the age of 16
Two children who are younger than 10
A child (under 16)

There is a separate LHA rate for one room where some facilities are shared. This will apply to people who are under 25 and live on their own. They will receive this allowance as well as anyone else who is living in non-self-contained accommodation or in a single room ’studio’ flat.

Once the LHA has been applied to a claim it will continue to apply at that rate for one year. After this period of time it will be reviewed again.
A new LHA can be set within this one year period if any of the following changes of circumstances take place.

if you move
a child reaches the age of 10 or 16
arrival or departure of a household member
a change in the relationship between existing occupiers

How will payment be made?

LHA will on most occasions be paid directly to the tenant and there will no longer be the choice to have the payments made straight to the landlord. The payments will be made either straight in to the tenants bank account by BACS or they will receive a cheque.
This will mean that the responsibility to make sure that rent is paid will now lie with the tenant. One of the safest and most reliable ways of doing this is to set up a standing order straight from a bank account.
If the rent that is charged by the landlord is less than the LHA then the tenant will receive the total amount of the rent and up to £15 on top of this. This is the maximum amount of Housing Benefit that they could receive. If the rent is more than the LHA figure the tenant will have to make up any difference when they make payments to their landlord.

Aims and Objectives

• Fairness – LHA is based on the size, composition and location of a household so two households with similar circumstances in the same location will receive similar amounts of benefit


• Choice – Tenants can take greater responsibility over how they spend their income. They are able to chose the size of their accommodation and decide how much they need to pay towards their rent


• Transparency – With this new simpler system tenants are able to compare how much help is available towards their housing costs in different areas and for different sized properties


• Personal Responsibility – With payments being made directly to the tenant, they are encouraged to take responsibility for their own finances, helping them to develop the skills they will need as they move in to the work place


• Financial Inclusion – Tenants will be encouraged to have payments of LHA made directly in to their bank accounts and to set up a standing order to make rent payments to their landlord. This is a safe and secure method of payment that guarantees the rent payments are made


• Reduces barriers to work – Greater certainty about what in -work benefit they could receive should encourage customers to take the step away from welfare and into work


• Improved administration – There will no longer be a need for the complicated individual referrals to the rent office that have previously caused delays in the processing of claims