Rent Allowance confusion

esprimo

Rent allowance (RA) confusion! let me explain:

Currently I'm on jobseekers allowance as is my friend who lives with me. At the moment we are both living in the same house (student accomadation) for the last two years.
As the house here is for students, we now have to move out before september and besides we cant get RA here.
we are now looking to find a house to live in together and get rent allowance. This is where my confusion is.

• Will paying for my rent (student accomadation) for the past two years suffice for the 6 month in private accomadation rule?
• when should we move in? say we move into a house below the rent allowance cap and the landlord accepts RA,we sign leases etc. do we then apply for RA?
• following this what if we get refused RA, having already signed a lease - we will be in a tough situation.
• how can you get approved for rent allowance from a CWO beforehand if your currently living in a student house and have to find another suitable house soon. Do we select a house, tell the landlord we're interested but are waiting on confirmation from a CWO about the house before we move in and sign leases?

Seems like a catch 22 to me. Any advice really appreciated, thanks

SarahC11

depends on where you live, some CWO's still deal with rent allowance but some are now done by sending forms back to central rents unit (im in the process of dealing with rents unit so not too sure about how long ect. as my cwo used to do the RA)

go see ur cwo tell him/her your moving if he deals with the RA he will most likely tell u to find a house and come back to him once you've moved in (i find it easier to pay deposit and 1st months rent in advance yourself to get in the door) he will most likely give you the deposit back if u have paid it (thats the way we did it anyway) as for the rents unit its all the same forms but it all has to be posted back so im unsure when you will hear back from them, if the cwo handles it he would have the RA ready to be paid by the time ur rent is due provided you'v given him everything needed, basically fingers crossed ur cwo deals with the RA cos its alot easier and you know where you stand straight away!

esprimo

SarahC11 wrote: »

depends on where you live, some CWO's still deal with rent allowance but some are now done by sending forms back to central rents unit (im in the process of dealing with rents unit so not too sure about how long ect. as my cwo used to do the RA)

go see ur cwo tell him/her your moving if he deals with the RA he will most likely tell u to find a house and come back to him once you've moved in (i find it easier to pay deposit and 1st months rent in advance yourself to get in the door) he will most likely give you the deposit back if u have paid it (thats the way we did it anyway) as for the rents unit its all the same forms but it all has to be posted back so im unsure when you will hear back from them, if the cwo handles it he would have the RA ready to be paid by the time ur rent is due provided you'v given him everything needed, basically fingers crossed ur cwo deals with the RA cos its alot easier and you know where you stand straight away!

Thanks for the reply. Yes the CWO would deal with rent allowance in my area. But the point I was making is if you move into a house and sign a lease you've obviously commited to living there, so what happens if the CWO then rejects your RA application upon viewing the house/circumstances even though I would think everything is in order? I just want to know what to do now before I commit to a lease and know if I'll get the rent allowance for said house beforehand? I suppose I'll just have to rent with my friend and hope I'll get approved like everyone else.

Also I forgot to ask would my friend and I be turned down for RA aswell if we rented a house within our RA cap limit but the house has one or two spare rooms?

Thanks

SarahC11

if you find a house your interested in then go to the cwo explain amount of rent ect and he will tell you there and then if you'l get it, so you can then sign a lease and all that and go back to him when you'v all the forms filled out, you'l need to give him a copy of the lease to get the RA sorted anyway so essentially ya will have to sign one but he should tell u in advance if the house is ok to go for it. if the rent is the right amount it wont matter if there is spare bedrooms, you and your friend will have to apply for RA separately (unless ur a cohabiting couple) you's will be house sharing so if the total rent is 800pm your rent will be 400pm so thats what you apply for as does ur friend, does that make sense? im not the best at explaining things!!

esprimo

SarahC11 wrote: »

if you find a house your interested in then go to the cwo explain amount of rent ect and he will tell you there and then if you'l get it, so you can then sign a lease and all that and go back to him when you'v all the forms filled out, you'l need to give him a copy of the lease to get the RA sorted anyway so essentially ya will have to sign one but he should tell u in advance if the house is ok to go for it. if the rent is the right amount it wont matter if there is spare bedrooms, you and your friend will have to apply for RA separately (unless ur a cohabiting couple) you's will be house sharing so if the total rent is 800pm your rent will be 400pm so thats what you apply for as does ur friend, does that make sense? im not the best at explaining things!!

perfect totally makes sense. Thanks Sarah :)

Lugh Ildanach

As above, you will be applying for rent allowance for a room in a shared house, not for the house itself. Check out the rent limits for a single person in shared accommodation here

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welfare/social_welfare_payments/supplementary_welfare_schemes/rent_supplement.html#l62fd2

You are advised not to enter into the tenancy until you have the rent supplement approved, which for many landlords is simply not acceptable. However as the above poster says if you clear it with the CWO first, this should get round the problem. Unfortunately however, if you live in Wicklow, Kildare and large parts of Dublin, rent supplement applications are no longer dealt with by your local CWO but by central rent units which are near impossible to contact by phone.

Also, as far as your student accommodation is concerned, how did you pay this? Was it subsidised in any way? If you weren't paying for it yourself out of your own income or if it was subsidised accommodation, then you may not satisfy the 6 month criteria. Again this is something that can be run by a CWO (unless you are in a centralised rent unit area)

esprimo

Lugh Ildanach wrote: »

As above, you will be applying for rent allowance for a room in a shared house, not for the house itself. Check out the rent limits for a single person in shared accommodation here

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welfare/social_welfare_payments/supplementary_welfare_schemes/rent_supplement.html#l62fd2

You are advised not to enter into the tenancy until you have the rent supplement approved, which for many landlords is simply not acceptable. However as the above poster says if you clear it with the CWO first, this should get round the problem. Unfortunately however, if you live in Wicklow, Kildare and large parts of Dublin, rent supplement applications are no longer dealt with by your local CWO but by central rent units which are near impossible to contact by phone.

Also, as far as your student accommodation is concerned, how did you pay this? Was it subsidised in any way? If you weren't paying for it yourself out of your own income or if it was subsidised accommodation, then you may not satisfy the 6 month criteria. Again this is something that can be run by a CWO (unless you are in a centralised rent unit area)

Thanks for your help. Iv looked at the rent limits on the website you quoted but it seems as though this is a little unreliable as the limit within my town seems to be lower than the county level itself. I know this from acquiring a form in the local HSE with local limits set out in it.
As for the student accomadation ,yes I'v paid for it for several years myself. I don't know if it's subsidised. Its a student village and I'v been paying per semester as is the norm with these houses. Are student villages/ houses generally considered subsidised? And if so has anyone been turned down because of this? Any way I'll just ask the CWO. Thanks again.

felic

Ok Im kinda in the same boat as you are now except Ive been living at home for the last almost, 2 years, went back to uni, just finished year 1, but now it really is time to move on!

What I was told to do, was first contact an agency that rents places to try find something that would suit u and ur budget and accepts RA. Then go talk to your SW officer about it, explaining the situation, and quoting the cost of the rent. They will be able to give you an idea if its possible or not for you... and they will give you all the forms you need. From what I can tell, you have to basically come up with the deposit and first month rent yourself; have the landlord/agency fill in the required details on the forms, go back to the sw officer with those forms, and thats it.

I was told as well they might not give you the full amount of the rent... but you make up the difference yourself.

So if you can maybe borrow the deposit and first month from your parents or some friends or even the credit union, try that... or else... just save every last cent between now and ur deadline.

At least theres 2 of you in this and you're not alone. Good luck with it and I really hope it all works out. Nothing worse than the stress of worrying about where you will live and how to pay for it.

Lugh Ildanach

esprimo wrote: »

Thanks for your help. Iv looked at the rent limits on the website you quoted but it seems as though this is a little unreliable as the limit within my town seems to be lower than the county level itself. I know this from acquiring a form in the local HSE with local limits set out in it.
As for the student accomadation ,yes I'v paid for it for several years myself. I don't know if it's subsidised. Its a student village and I'v been paying per semester as is the norm with these houses. Are student villages/ houses generally considered subsidised? And if so has anyone been turned down because of this? Any way I'll just ask the CWO. Thanks again.

Yes, the limits on the welfare website are the maximum limits set by statute, different local offices are free to apply lower local limits.

I'm not sure whether student accommodation is generally subsidised, if you were paying an equivalent to local rents, then it should be fine. Were you paying this from your own income? If your parents were helping you with rent, then this will not be accepted. The CWO will look at your own income and decide whether in all the circumstances you could reasonably have afforded private rented accommodation at the start of the tenancy.

I'm not aware of anyone being turned down specifically because of subsidised nature of student accommodation, but people are regularly refused on the basis that they could not reasonably afforded the accommodation.