Discretionary Housing Payment

What Discretionary Housing Payments cover and do not cover, who can apply, how to apply for payments and how to make an appeal.

When you can claim

Discretionary Housing Payments provide extra help to customers who are already getting Housing Benefit and need further financial assistance with their housing costs. This will usually be because there is a shortfall between the amount of benefit they get and their rent.

We receive some money from the government each year to spend on Discretionary Housing Payments but there is a limit on the amount we can spend. This means that not everyone who claims will be awarded this extra help.

Under certain circumstances extra help may be available to you if:

we cannot meet your rent in full
you need help with a rent deposit, rent in advance or removal costs

What are of the shortfall Discretionary Housing Payments cover

You have a shortfall if the amount of Housing Benefit you receive is less than the rent you have to pay.

There may be different reasons why you have a shortfall. Here are a few examples of the types of shortfall discretionary housing payments can help with:

when the local housing allowance is less than the rent you have to pay and your landlord will not reduce your rent
when your benefit is reduced because of the spare room deduction
when your benefit is reduced because you have a non-dependant living with you
when your benefit is reduced based on your income
when you need to pay a rent deposit or rent in advance to move into another property (but we will normally only consider this if you are moving to a cheaper property because of a shortfall at your current address)

If you are living in over large or over expensive accommodation, we will normally expect you to move to smaller, more affordable accommodation.

We may pay you a Discretionary Housing Payment for a short time though to give you time to find other accommodation. If there are special reasons why you need to remain in your current home, for example, if your home has been significantly adapted to meet the needs of a disabled person, we will not expect you to move.

What the payments do no cover

We cannot pay Discretionary Housing Payments to help with the following costs:

a shortfall between your rent and the amount of housing benefit or universal credit you receive for services included in your rent which cannot be met by housing benefit or universal credit (eg heating, meals, water rates, etc)
extra payments you are making on top of your normal rent to clear rent arrears
reduced income caused by sanctions or reductions in benefit, for example, a reduction applied to your benefit as a result of not attending a work-focused interview or a jobseekers allowance employment sanction

We will not usually pay you Discretionary Housing Payments if we think you can deal with the shortfall in other ways such as:

claiming other benefits you may be entitled to
negotiating any debt repayments
cutting down on unnecessary and avoidable expenses