back to education and rent allowance

tommy89

hi im am going to be applying for back to education allowance and on the welfair site it says i may be entitled to apply for rent allowance as well but i am confused..

it says you have to be in rented accommodation for 6 months but i presume this isnt for back to ed (i will be moving to galway) doesnt say if it is.

also i would have to be means tested and i think there might be a few of us living in a house trying to get this rent allowance, would that be a problem?

has anyone got the two payments before?

how likely would say 4 or 5 of us sharing a house be to receive rent allowance?

thank you

Lugh Ildanach

You can get rent supplement and BTEA (it is quite common for this to happen), but to get the rent supplement you would have to meet all the criteria for rent supplement, including that you have already been in rented accommodation for 6 months prior to applying (and that you could afford the rent when you started the tenancy). If you cannot meet this criteria, then you can still get rent supplement if you have been assessed as in need of housing by the local authority.

Living in shared accommodation is no problem. In County Galway the maximum rent for a person in shared accommodation is 255 euro/month. If eligible for rent supplement, you will have to pay the first 24 euro each week (104/month) as well as any assessment for means you have. If your only income is the BTEA then that means paying an additional 2 euro a week, as the BTEA rate is 2 euro above the SWA rate. If you are living with other friends (not a partner/spouse) then your housemates income will not be taken into consideration.

tommy89

So we won't be able to get the rent supplement with the back to ed because we won't have been renting for 6 months before as we will only be moving in September

Thanks for your help