Housing benefit overview

Housing benefit is a national scheme to assist those on low incomes to meet their rent payments. It is administered by local authorities (which may contract out this service) and can be claimed by benefit claimants, low earners and others with a low income, subject to the relevant criteria being met.

In many cases, housing benefit does not cover all of the claimant's rent and so s/he may have to make up the shortfall her/himself.

Housing benefit is sometimes called 'rent rebate' for council tenants and 'rent allowance' for private tenants and tenants of housing associations. Increasingly, tenants in both the private and social rented sector are moving on to universal credit.  Whilst it is possible, in some cases to claim both housing benefit and universal credit, in most cases universal credit contains an amount which is intended to be paid towards rent. This is known as 'universal credit for housing costs' or 'the housing element'.

The local housing allowance scheme (LHA) is the method of calculating housing benefit or universal credit for housing costs for most tenants in private rented sector.

Please see the section on LHA for more information.

The principal regulations governing the housing benefit scheme are:

• the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 Housing Benefit Regulations 2006, as amended (which covers claimants of working age)

• the Housing Benefit (Persons who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations 2006 and

• the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit  (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2001 SI 2001/1002

These have all been subject to many amendments. Guidance on the law is issued in Housing Benefit adjudication circulars.  The law and guidance is common to Scotland, England and Wales, but does not apply to Northern Ireland, where a separate scheme exists.

The age at which a claimant, whether male or female, ceases to be a housing benefit claimant of working age increases in line with the state pension age for women. [1] The state pension age for women will increase from 60 to 65 in the period up to April 2018, thereafter both men and women's state pension age will increase from 65 to 66 by October 2020 [2] with further increases proposed beyond this date.

The Gov.uk state pension calculator can be used to calculate a claimant's pension age.