Contents:
- What is housing benefit?
- Claiming housing benefit if you are a member of a couple
- People who have been granted leave as a refugee or for other humanitarian reasons or have been evacuated
- British and Irish citizens, settled status, and parents of a British child
- EEA nationals and EEA family members
- All other people from outside the EEA
What is housing benefit?
Housing benefit is a cash social security benefit to help you pay your rent if have a low income. To qualify for housing benefit you must make a valid claim and be an eligible person. The rules about who is eligible vary according to whether you are British, a national of an EEA member state or from outside the EEA.
All householders (whether owners or tenants) pay council tax to their local councils, based on the property value. The rules about who is eligible to get help towards paying their council tax through CTB are identical to the rules for HB.
Here you will find more information about the law on housing benefit.
Claims for housing benefit if you are a member of a couple
If you are a member of a couple you are only be excluded from HB if both you and your partner are ineligible (e.g. if both you and your partner have leave to remain with no recourse to public funds). If only one of you is ineligible then the other (eligible) member should make the claim.
People who have been granted leave as a refugee or for humanitarian reasons or have been evacuated
If you have been granted refugee status, humanitarian protection discretionary leave you are entitled to HB/CTB from the date you receive the letter that confirms you have been granted leave (unless, unusually, your leave has a no public funds condition).
If you are an evacuee from Montserrat who left the territory due to the volcanic eruption or you entered the UK as part of the evacuation programme for vulnerable British citizens in Zimbabwe you are also entitled to HB/CTB and exempted from the habitual residence test usually applied.
British and Irish citizens and people with settled status
If you are a British Citizen, Irish Citizen, a citizen of a Commonwealth country with ‘right of abode’ in the UK or have been granted indefinite leave to remain (also known as ‘settled status’) you are entitled to housing benefit if:
- you are habitually resident; or
- you have been deported from another country to the UK; or
- you have been awarded a one of the following benefits
- income-based jobseeker’s allowance
- income-related employment and support allowance
- income support
- state pension credit.
EEA nationals and EEA family members
If you are an EEA national other than a Bulgarian or Romanian, you will be entitled to HB/CTB if:
- You are in self-employment in the UK (including if you are self-employed but temporarily unable to work due to sickness)
- You are an EEA worker
- You are a former EEA worker who is temporarily unable to work (e.g. unemployed or off sick)
- You are a EEA family member of any of the above
- You have previously worked in the UK but have since retired
- You have lived in the UK for five years and have acquired a permanent right of residence.
- You have been awarded one of the following benefits:
- income-based jobseeker’s allowance (including where you have entered the UK looking for work)
- income-related employment and support allowance
- income support, or
- state pension credit.
In any other case you are only entitled to benefit if you are habitually resident and you have some other right to reside (see other EEA nationals and EEA family members for details).
All other people from outside the EEA
If you are a citizen of a country outside the EEA you will normally be subject to immigration control and excluded from HB/CTB. However, there are some exceptions to this rule as described below.
You are entitled to HB/CTB if:
- You are a national of Croatia, Macedonia or Turkey and you have any form of leave or you are an EEA family member provided that in either case you are also habitually resident.
- You have been granted leave without recourse to public funds and have been self-supporting but your funds have been temporarily disrupted but are expected to resume shortly. In this case you are entitled to HB/CTB for up to six weeks within any one period of leave. If the disruption to your funds has already exceeded the six-week limit when the claim is made there is no entitlement.
- You have been granted leave as result of your sponsor signing a maintenance undertaking and either
- you have lived in the UK for five years or more
- your sponsor (or all of your sponsors if there was more than one) has since died; and
In either case you are also habitually resident (although in practice the authority will normally accept that you are).
In any other case you are only entitled to HB/CTB if you are habitually resident and you have leave to enter the UK which is not subject to a ‘no public funds’ condition or a maintenance undertaking.
See here for how to make a claim.
