Thread: Housing benefit & Incapacity benefit

Hiya,

This is from Help with your rent – Housing Benefit

If you are not getting Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance or the guarantee credit of Pension Credit, Housing Benefit may cover the whole or part of your rent. The amount of Housing Benefit you get will depend on your income and capital (if you get the savings credit of Pension Credit, the local authority will use the same figures as the Pension Service to calculate your benefit). The income you can have before it reduces your Housing Benefit depends on your circumstances, for example, your age, whether you have a partner or children, or whether you are disabled or care for a disabled person.

I would suggest a quick call to an advice line or the CAB with your personal figures to get the best idea. Good luck!

Most benefits are taken into consideration in full when calculating income for HB purposes; very few benefits are partially or fully disregarded.
Benefits taken into account in full include:-
contribution-based jobseeker's allowance
state retirement pension
additional pension or graduated pension
incapacity benefit
severe disablement allowance
carer's allowance
child benefit
widow's pension and bereavement allowance.
maternity allowance
industrial injuries benefits, but not constant attendance allowance or exceptionally severe disablement allowance
industrial death benefit
child's special allowance
war orphan's pension
foreign benefits that are similar to the benefits listed above.


The following benefits are disregarded in full:-
disability living allowance
attendance allowance
constant attendance allowance
exceptionally severe disablement allowance
mobility supplement
guardian's allowance
any social fund payment
council tax benefit and any discretionary housing payment
Christmas bonus
income support or income-based jobseeker's allowance
special payments made to war widows and war widowers whose spouses died as a result of service before 1973,
certain pension payments, if a local authority chooses to disregard them in full


Tax Credits are a messy affair. Working tax credit and child tax credit are taken into account in full unless you are entitled to a disregard (standard earnings disregards, childcare costs disregard etc) ) and/or HMRC is recovering an overpayment of a tax credit.

There are many many other detailed disregards; there is too many here to list them. But the list above should cover the ost common benefits.