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Can someone advise on this? My family & I want to move to Scotland,so my wife can spend her final years near her family. We own a house in England,with a mortgae, so cant buy another,so want to rent. I get Income Support & Carers Allowance, & want to claim LHA but the council say that I have over the savings limit (£16k) so cant claim LHA. The £16K is , they say, the equity in my house,and they are treating this as ready money! Is this correct? Its all locked up in the house,we have no other savings.
We would have to rent our house to cover the mortgage, until it could be sold, but in this climate who knows how long that could be!
Unfortunately the council are correct in saying that that your property is to be treated as capital. This is because it would not be your main residence but counted as a second home and must be declared as such.
However, the value of the property can be disregarded for the first 26 weeks of a claim if you are trying to sell it; this may continue beyond the 26 week period if you are experiencing difficulty in selling it.
From DWP RR2 - A guide to Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (October 2006)
Capital means your savings, investments and the value of property and land owned but not occupied by you.
For the purposes of HB/CTB, certain important types of capital are ignored, such as personal possessions and your home. You will not get HB/CTB if your capital is worth more than £16,000 unless you are entitled to Guarantee Credit of Pension Credit.
Property you own but do not occupy [HB Sch 6, HB(SPC) Sch 6; CTB Sch 5, CTB(SPC) Sch 4]
The value of this property is counted as capital but you may be able to get HB/CTB even if the value of the property means that your savings are more than £16,000. This is because the value of the property may be ignored when your savings are worked out, in certain circumstances.
Income Support would ordinarily entitle you to full HB/CTB, however as it is income based you will, by law, have to notify the change of circumstances in relation to your property status. Again, for the first 26 weeks of a sale, the value of the property will be disregarded for Income Support purposes.
Local Housing Allowance query
, until it could be sold, but in this climate who knows how long that could be!
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