Housing benefit for private tenants

This content applies to England only.

Housing laws vary between England and Scotland. Get advice relating to Scotland

If you live in private rented housing and have been claiming housing benefit from before 7 April 2008 without a break, your housing benefit is calculated using different rules than those used for people claiming local housing allowance (LHA). These rules also apply to certain old tenancies.

Who do these rules apply to?

This set of housing benefit rules applies to people:

living in private rented accommodation who have claimed housing benefit continuously without a break from before 7 April 2008
with a ‘Rent Act’ or ‘regulated’ tenancy from before 15 January 1989.

If you rent from the council or from a housing association, rules for calculating housing benefit apply instead.

If you rent in the private sector and these rules don’t apply, the rules for local housing allowance apply instead.

How your housing benefit is calculated

Most of the rules used for the calculation of housing benefit for council and housing association tenants apply, including rules for assessing:

income
savings
service charges
deductions for any non-dependants (adults living with you who could contribute to the rent).

However, some different/additional rules also apply. Your rent level could be restricted:

to an average rent level for your area – this is more generous than the level set for local housing allowance
if it is too large for your needs
to the rate for a shared accommodation if you are aged under 25 (or under 35 from January 2012).

If your rent is ‘too high’

The council will work out the maximum housing benefit you can receive. This may be less than your actual rent if your rent is higher than would be expected for the type of property or other similar properties in the same area. The council will limit your maximum housing benefit to the average rent for similar accommodation in the area.

If there is a break in your claim for housing benefit, or you move house, your new claim for housing benefit will be assessed under the local housing allowance rules. Under these rules, maximum rent levels are limited to within the lowest 30 per cent of rents for similar properties in an area.

Is your home too large?

You will be assessed as needing a bedroom for each of the following people in your household:

adult couple
other person aged 16 or over
any two children of the same sex up to the age of 16
any two children regardless of sex under the age of 10
any other child.

(Since 1 November 2010, foster children are not included in this calculation.)

In addition, you are allowed living rooms on the following basis:

one for less than four people
two for four to six people
three for seven or more people.

If you or your partner are disabled and require overnight care, you may need a separate bedroom to allow a carer to stay overnight. From April 2011 you can claim housing benefit for an extra bedroom for an overnight carer, but only if a bedroom is already available.

If the council decides that your home is larger than you need, your eligible rent will be based on the maximum rent for a home of the size appropriate for your household.

If you are aged 35 or under

From January 2012, the maximum housing benefit you can get for a privately rented place is at the same rate as you would get for a single room in shared accommodation, rather than for your own flat or house if you are single and aged 35 or under. Before January 2012, this rule applied to people aged 25 or under. The new rules will usually apply to you on the anniversary of your claim.