Local Housing Allowance (LHA)

If you pay rent to a private landlord we will use the Local Housing Allowance to work out how much Housing Benefit you can get. This means that we do not always use the actual weekly rent you pay to work out your benefit. If your actual rent is higher than the LHA rate we will only use this rate to work out your benefit. So it is important that you find out the rate that will apply to you before deciding whether to rent a property

The LHA rate that applies to you will depend on

• the size of the property you need; and
• the area where you live.

You can get this information from LHA Direct.

• LHA rates for this borough from April 2012 (MS Word, 329KB)

Changes to the LHA

There have been some changes to the Local Housing Allowance rules from 1 April 2011 You can read about the changes in our customer leaflet(pdf, 31KB) or on the Directgov website.

Further LHA changes were introduced from 1 January 2012 which affect single people who are aged 25 or more, but under 35. These people will only be entitled to the shared accommodation LHA rate, rather than being able to claim for self contained one bedroom accommodation (these rules already apply to single people under 25).

If you are single and aged 25 or more, but under 35, this change will apply to you, unless you are covered by one of the exceptions. There is more information about the change and about the current shared accommodation rates at the Directgov website under Local Housing Allowance.

From April 2012 the LHA rates will only be updated once per year instead of every month. This means that the rates shown for April 2012 will be used until April 2013 when they will be up-dated by the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The new rules may mean that you receive less help with your rent payments. You are responsible for paying the difference between the rent you are charged and the amount of Housing Benefit you receive. Once you know that you are not going to receive enough Housing Benefit to cover the full rent, you need to think about how you will afford to pay the difference. Read our advice for tenants who are likely to have difficulty paying their rent(pdf, 39KB).

Can LHA be paid to my landlord?

LHA is usually paid to the tenant so that they can take responsibility for paying their rent to the landlord. But if you think you will have problems managing the rent payments you can ask us to pay your benefit direct to the landlord. More details and an application form are available in how we pay benefits.

We will also consider paying your benefit direct to the landlord if it will help you to get a new tenancy or keep an existing tenancy. We will only consider this if the rent is within the LHA rates or we are satisfied that you can afford to pay the difference.

If you are a landlord of a tenant on Housing Benefit, you can ask us to pay the benefit direct to you if the tenant is having problems paying the rent on time. You do not have to wait until the tenant has rent arrears of 8 weeks. Contact us as soon as you know your tenant is having problems paying the rent.