Social Security Administration Act 1992

134 Arrangements for housing benefit

(1) Housing benefit provided by virtue of a scheme under section 123 of the Contributions and Benefits Act (in this Act referred to as “the housing benefit scheme”)—

(a) is to be in the form of a rate rebate funded and administered by the appropriate rating authority, if it is in respect of payments by way of rates;

(b) is to be in the form of a rent rebate or, in prescribed cases, of a rent allowance, funded and administered by the appropriate housing authority, if it is in respect of payments, other than payments by way of rates, to be made to a housing authority; and

(c) is in any other case to be in the form of a rent allowance funded and administered by the appropriate local authority.

(2) The rebates and allowances referred to in subsection (1) above may take any of the following forms, that is to say—

(a) a payment or payments by the authority to the person entitled to the benefit;

(b) a reduction in the amount of any payments which that person is liable to make to the authority by way of rent or rates; or

(c) such a payment or payments and such a reduction;

and in any enactment or instrument (whenever passed or made) “pay”, in relation to housing benefit, includes discharge in any of those forms.

(3) Regulations may provide that in prescribed cases a payment made by a person entitled to a rent allowance shall be treated for the purposes of subsection (1)(a) above as being, to such extent as may be prescribed, a payment by way of rates.

(4) For the purposes of this section in its application to any dwelling—

(a) the appropriate rating authority is the rating authority for the area in which it is situated;

(b) the appropriate housing authority is the housing authority to whom the occupier of the dwelling is liable to make payments; and

(c) the appropriate local authority is the local authority for the area in which the dwelling is situated.

(5) Authorities may agree that one shall carry out responsibilities relating to housing benefit on another’s behalf.

(6) Circumstances may be prescribed in which a rate rebate may be treated as if it fell to be paid as a rent allowance.

(7) The cases that may be prescribed under subsection (1)(b) above do not include any case where the payment in respect of which the housing benefit is granted is a payment in respect of a dwelling which, within the meaning of Part VI of the [1989 c. 42.] Local Government and Housing Act 1989, is a house or other property of an authority within the authority’s Housing Revenue Account.

(8) An authority may modify any part of the housing benefit scheme administered by the authority—

(a) so as to provide for disregarding, in determining a person’s income (whether he is the occupier of a dwelling or any other person whose income falls to be aggregated with that of the occupier of a dwelling), the whole or part of any war disablement pension or war widow’s pension payable to that person;

(b) to such extent in other respects as may be prescribed,

and any such modification may be adopted by resolution of an authority.

(9) Modifications other than such modifications as are mentioned in subsection (8)(a) above shall be so framed as to secure that, in the estimate of the authority adopting them, the total of the rebates or allowances which will be granted by the authority in any year will not exceed the permitted total of rebates or allowances for that year.

(10) An authority who have adopted modifications may by resolution revoke or vary them.

(11) If the housing benefit scheme includes power for an authority to exercise a discretion in awarding housing benefit, the authority shall not exercise that discretion so that the total of the rebates or allowances granted by them in any year exceeds the permitted total of rebates or allowances for that year.

(12) In relation to any authority the permitted total of rebates or allowances for any year shall be calculated, in the manner specified by an order made by the Secretary of State, by reference to the total housing benefit granted by that authority during the year, less such deductions as are specified in the order.

(13) In this section “modifications” includes additions, omissions and amendments, and related expressions shall be construed accordingly.