Challenging the Local Housing Allowance

Tenant Discussion
1

I live in a privately-rented flat in NE England paid through Universal Credit. Like so many others, I am concerned that I could lose my tenancy if the landlord increases my rent beyond the Local Housing Allowance limit. I looked at the Valuation Office Agency page which shows graphs of supposed local rents from which they calculated the LHA at the 30th percentile. I was surprised to find many rents considerably below mine of £75 pw so I searched online for local flats. There appears to be nothing cheaper than £75 yet the VOA graph shows them beginning at £57.13. I am suspicious of the validity of their data, especially given that the dates from which the VOA collected local rental rates are given as 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020 yet these are used to set the LHA for 2022-23 at £76.15.

I wrote to the VOA on 18 April to ask them to explain this. I expect they will refuse to do so. Can anyone suggest how I might challenge the VOA to justify their figures?

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Hi

The LHA has been frozen since april 2020. In april 2020 it was set to cover cheapest 30% of rents but this is over a fairly wide area so even then there were towns where nothing was covered by LHA. Market rents have increased a lot since april 2020 so there is virtually nothing that LHA covers.

I am a landlord and have left rents at LHA for tenants claiming it becase they have been good tenants. There isn’t much you can do other than be a good tenant and not give landlord a reason to increase the rent, many are happy with a lower rent than market rates for a known good tenant.

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