Local housing allowance
is a new way of calculating housing benefit
for people living in private rented accommodation. The scheme was introduced in
April 2008 and it only applies to certain
groups of private tenants.
Your entitlement
to local housing allowance (LHA) will depend on your personal circumstances,
such as your income, savings and the size of your household.
Local housing allowance
rules allow the Housing Executive to calculate your housing benefit
entitlements on the basis of local
housing allowance rates.
The scheme
applies to private
tenants in non-rent controlled tenancies only and sets out maximum amounts
of "eligible rent " for different areas in Northern Ireland, depending on
types and sizes of properties within each of these areas.
Tenants who have protected or
rent-controlled tenancies, or those renting from a social landlord such as the
Housing Executive or a housing association, are not affected by the
introduction of LHA.
The Housing
Executive has created 8 different broad rental market areas (BRMA) for Northern Ireland.
From these, they have examined the range of rents being charged for different
types and sizes of properties.
The BRMAs are
defined as areas that have "two or more distinct areas of residential
accommodation, within which a person could reasonably be expected to live".
These areas have
to take in consideration facilities and services which are available for the
purposes of:
health
education
recreation
personal
banking
shopping
public
and private transport.
The BRMAs should
contain a variety of types of residential property and tenancies.
To set the local housing
allowance rates, the Housing Executive looks at:
individual
broad rental market areas, and
the
range of rents being charged for each type of private rented sector
accommodation within them.
From this
information, the Housing Executive then takes the median charge from a range of
rents for properties of different sizes and types within each BRMA. This figure
is then taken as the LHA rate.
The local housing allowance rates are periodically reviewed by the Housing Executive and are
updated regularly on the Housing Executive's
website.
Local housing allowance
rates will give you a clearer idea of the maximum
level of help you're likely to get for certain types of accommodation in
certain areas. For example, if the LHA rate for a two bedroom property in Belfast is £101.50 per
week, the Housing Executive would use this figure as your eligible rent to
calculate your entitlement.
However, the
actual amount you receive may not be the full LHA rate set for the property you
wish to rent. Your personal circumstances, such as number of people living with
you, your income and savings are all taken in consideration. Some deductions to
your allowance could be made if, for instance, you have non-dependents living
with you.
Local Housing
Allowance rates, in effect, act like pre-tenancy
determinations. However, the Housing Executive does not publish the LHA
rates for properties with more than 5 bedrooms.
If you wish to rent accommodation
with more than 5 bedrooms, you will need to ask the Housing Executive to
provide you with a pre-tenancy determination, which will give you an indication
of how much help you might get with your housing costs.
The new local housing allowance scheme
is not replacing housing benefit, but is used as a new basis for
calculating the maximum amount of help that you can get with your rent
for the particular property you are renting, in the particular area
you're living in.
The Housing
Executive will still take in consideration the size of your household,
income and capital to work out the actual amount of assistance you are entitled to.
If you think that you should be getting help with your rent, you can submit a claim form to the Housing Executive. The Housing Executive will let you know if you will be entitled to any help depending on your circumstances.
