ANGIE1956

Hi all
i am planning a return to the uk in December. Can anyone tell me about rent allowance. i will have enough funds to last me a few years, but i am worried down the line if my job does not pay me enough to cover my everyday expenses. Is there such a thing as a rent allowance?
Thanks all

DDL

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm

formula

Nobody knows what will happen in a few years or what the rules will be then.

What would happen now is that you could apply for LHA from your local council. If your income is very low and you are allowed welfare support, they would work out the maximum rate of welfare payment you are allowed for your situation i.e. from a room in a shared house rate to a maximum of a 4 bedroom house rate(regardless of how many are in the family) and deduct the money you earn or receive from welfare, for their assessment. Your everyday expenses or debts, will not be taken into their assessment as they have a strict criteria for the minimum income that people can live on. They would also want to see all your bank and savings statements to check that you have not been disposing of your funds in order to claim income based welfare.

From April 2011, the government has reduced the rent allowance they will pay, from the 50th percentile to the 30th percentile, so your choice of property will be limited. Caps on total welfare payments are also due in very soon, which reduce the choice of area to live, for those that don't work.

In a couple of years, the overhaul of the welfare system changes would mean that you would need to apply for Universal Credits instead, from a central government agency and these changes are still being ironed out, but they will be a lot stricter. Those in Housing Association houses will no longer have a house for life and their rents will increase to be more in line with private rentals.

The idea of a central system for all welfare payments, is to stop fraud and detect who has been committing benefit fraud in the past; linked together with the right they already have to go to banks and check the bank statments of those people, or families of these people, they suspect have committed fraud. Benefit fraud is not time barred.

Basically, until you want to claim welfare, nobody can tell you if you will be able to have any money or how much it will be.