Eligible rent for housing benefit

For all types of tenancies you need to be aware that there are certain charges that may be included in your rent that may not be covered by housing benefit. These include:

• water charges
• fuel charges
• cable television
• heating
• meals
• service charges
• support charges

If you pay your rent to a private landlord you are a private tenant.

Most rents for private tenants have to be referred to The Rent Service.

A rent officer decision will not usually be needed if:

• you are a council tenant, or
• your tenancy started before 15th January 1989, or
• you are a housing association tenant

If a rent office decision is required, the rent officer will deduct these charges when they make a decision for a property. If no rent office decision is needed these charges will be deducted from the amount of rent you pay. The amount left is called eligible rent, this is the figure that will be used when calculating your housing benefit.

There is a Rooms Calculator on The Rent Service website so you can check how many rooms the rent officer would consider suitable for your household.

If you are thinking of entering into a private tenancy you can request a pre tenancy determination. By doing this you can find out the amount of rent that will be used for your benefit calculation before signing the tenancy. Pre tenancy determination forms are available to download and print, can be requested from the benefits section, or collected from the council offices. If you are considering more than one property to rent you can request more than one pre tenancy determination.

The pre tenancy determination will usually be made within 3 working days. Once the decision has been made a copy will be sent to you, the landlord, and Woking Borough Council.

If the rent officer decides that the rent for your home is too high, or that the property is too large for your household, your rent could be restricted.

• This means that your housing benefit may be calculated using a lower amount than your actual rent.
• This does not mean that you cannot take on the tenancy, but does mean that you will have to make up any shortfall as the full rent will not be used to calculate your housing benefit.

If you take on a tenancy without requesting a pre tenancy determination the benefits section will refer your rent to the rent officer when we receive your claim. This will mean that we will not be able to make a full assessment of your claim immediately. Because of this your claim will be assessed using a lower amount until the rent officer decision is available.