Renting from a Private Landlord

If you rent your home from a private landlord, or through a letting agent, we use the Local Housing Allowance rules to set the rent level for your Housing Benefit claim; this may be lower than the rent charged by your landlord.

Before you accept a tenancy read about Local Housing Allowance and find out what rent level we would allow for the house you are considering.  This is the maximum Housing Benefit amount you can receive.

You will need to know the Local Housing Allowance rent amount which applies for the area and property you are looking at or live in to carry out a calculation of your Housing Benefit entitlement.

Renting from the Housing Executive or a housing association

If you rent your home from the Housing Executive or a housing association, you may be affected by Social Sector Size Criteria (Bedroom Tax).

Your rent will be based on the number of bedrooms your household needs.

You can read more in our section:

Social Sector Size Criteria (Bedroom Tax)

Owner Occupiers

If you own and occupy your home, you can apply for Housing Benefit for help towards your rates charge only. 

We will ask you to provide your most recent Rate bill from Land and Property Services. This will be used to confirm the:

• Annual rate charge for your home;
• Your Rate Payer ID number;
• Your Property ID number; and
• Your Occupancy ID number.

Quick online calculation for Housing Benefit

To find out how much Housing Benefit you might expect to receive, use our:

Housing Benefit calculator. 

To use the calculator you will need:

• the rent charge
• date of birth for all members of your household
• income details for all members of your household

Please note this calculation will only give you an indication of how much you might receive, it is not the actual amount.

Advice disclaimer

The information in this section is for general advice only. We recommend that you contact your local Housing Benefit office if you have any queries.