Housing benefit for a family with a child in londoon sw?

Question

Hi! I am about to move out as i had a baby few months ago and the place is too smal for us(5 people in 2 bed) I have registered for council housing but you know how it is. We were looking for a flat to rent for about 6 months but landlords did'n accept housing benefit. So we decided to say in agency that we are moving with one more adult( my husband is employed and i am a student so we are on a low income) W found a perfect place and paid the holding deposit but i don't know if they agree to housing benefit later on. I have a baby so i am worried if they are able to remove us from the house. It is a 2 bedroom flat for 350 a week. (from my calculations we will be getting 240 of housing benefit therefore we would be able to manage the costs of rent and bills) Can anyone advise what we can do?? ANd what options we have. Thanks so much in anvance

Answer 1

The best people to talk to are the Citizens Advice Bureau. On such an important issue they would provide the best advice and be able to help you with all aspects, benefit help, tenancy laws etc.

http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/g...

Go to Find A CAB at the bottom and search by your postcode and find the nearest one with a phone number and you can do it over the phone.

All the best

Answer 2

Yes, see the CAB if you can.  

Also be aware though that from April housing benefit for private tenants is changing to something called 'local housing allowance'.  This is going to be a flat rate depending on the size of the property, it pays the whole rent if the rent is at the set level or lower, if the rent is higher than the allowed amount you have to pay the difference.  The good news from your point of view is that it's usually paid straight to you so you just pay the landlord and they don't have to be involved in it.

If by any chance you're in Lewisham it's already in operation there as it was one of the pilots.  Here's a table of the amounts for Lewisham which will give you some idea, it is also worth looking at you own council's website to see if they have anything on it yet:

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/Housing/Housi...

It also occurs to me that as you're a student there might be a welfare officer at your college who might know something about housing problems.

Good luck anyway!

Ok EDIT, just got my brain a bit in gear now, obviously these are maximum allowances and it will still depend on your partner's income.  The other thing I forgot to say, which I'm saying to everyone now on YA who asks a housing benefit question is that local housing benefits departments are not always that efficient and can get your assessment wrong, so it is always worth appealing for any decision to be 'looked at again'.  I recently went through this with my local council in London and won, I saw my local councillor who was able to put me in touch with someone higher up in the department who knew his stuff a bit better, but it took quite a lot of hassles and phone calls.