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Rent Allowance - 6 Month Rule?

  • 23-02-2011 4:20pm
    #1
    Pat8209
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1 ✭


    Hi, I have another question about the "6 month rule" if we can call it that.

    My situation is I am on social welfare (for almost a year now), but not rent allowance. I have started renting a studio place a couple of months ago (due to a bad situation in family home) paying the rent out of my social welfare along with the aid of a couple thousand euro i have/had in savings. It's a frugal life i can tell you!

    Can i get rent allowance once it has been 6 months is my question.

    I am worried not because it says on welfare website not simply that you can get rent allowance after 6 months paying yourself, but that "you can get it after 6 months paying yourself, if you can prove you could pay it when you started but cannot anymore.. due to a change in circumstances that came about AFTER you started renting".

    Does anyone know more, focusing on the last bit of that above sentence?

    It seems on most forum threads on this subject people commenting act as if the 6 month rule means simply that. That you can get it after six months paying yourself (once your accomadation falls into price bracket they have set). Whereas the welfare website would suggest that a person like me might be turned away cause i knew when i took the flat, relying on savings (instead of active income), that there would come a time when i could not afford it anymore.

    And if they do enforce this part of it, does anyone know how strictly so?

    i.e. Could i say i thought the savings i had would do a year but that i was caught out by unexpected bills along with the small reduction in my payment with the budget? (which is quite true)

    Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading

    Pat


Comments

  • #2
    tony.aspergers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 84 ✭✭tony.aspergers


    The whole situation regarding Rent Allowance is set to change shortly, with both Fine Gael and Labour saying they will bring forward (reduce) the current 18 month rule for eligibility for the Rental Accommodation Scheme, where those of us on Rent Allowance will be transferred onto this new scheme where we will simply pay a local council weekly rate and the Council will pay the landlords instead of offering council houses.

    You need to make sure your landlord is willing to join the scheme....


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