Colour banner for pages about paying rates on your home

Housing Benefit and Rate Relief for homeowners

Homeowners who are pensioners or get a Severe Disability Premium can apply for Housing Benefit and Rate Relief to help pay all or some of their rates. Land & Property Services is in charge of the rate relief scheme for homeowners.

Homeowners who can apply

There are two different qualifying criteria for new Housing Benefit and Rate Relief claims, depending if you are working age or state pension age.

If both you and your partner (if you have one) have reached pension age you must:

  • not have capital over £50k.

If you or your partner are of working age you must:

  • be an owner occupier
  • already get a benefit that includes Severe Disability Premium
  • not be in a co-ownership or rental buy scheme
  • not have capital over £16,000
  • not already get Housing Benefit and Rate Relief from the Housing Executive (NIHE)
  • not already get Universal Credit

Receiving Universal Credit

You can't claim Housing Benefit and Rate Relief to help pay your rates if you're of working age and can claim or already get Universal Credit.  You must apply for Rate Rebate if you want help paying your rates.

Homeowners already receiving other allowances

If you are entitled to other allowance schemes for rates, such as Disabled Person’s Allowance (DPA) or Lone Pensioner’s Allowance (LPA), LPS will consider this when assessing your application for Housing Benefit and Rate Relief. Housing Benefit and Rate Relief are means-tested and depend on your income.

Your income and household

To assess your application for Housing Benefit and Rate Relief, LPS needs information about your income and household circumstances. They’ll ask about:

  • you and your partner, if you have one
  • your children or anyone  living with you
  • anyone you share ownership of the property with, other than your partner
  • you and your partner’s income, including any benefits you already receive as wages,  grants, pensions (from your former employer), or any income you receive from  additional property or land you own
  • capital you and your partner have in stocks, shares, bank, building society  or savings accounts

Applying for Housing Benefit and Rate Relief

To apply for Housing Benefit and Rate Relief as a homeowner, you must complete an application form and send the form to Land & Property Services (LPS), along with supporting documents.

More useful links

Share this page

 

 

What do you want to do?
What is your question about?
Do you want a reply?
Your email address
To reply to you, we need your email address
Your feedback

We will not reply to your feedback.  Don't include any personal or financial information, for example National Insurance, credit card numbers, or phone numbers.

This feedback form is for issues with the nidirect website only.

You can use it to report a problem or suggest an improvement to a webpage.

If you have a question about a government service or policy, you should contact the relevant government organisation directly as we don’t have access to information about you held by government departments.

You must be aged 13 years or older - if you’re younger, ask someone with parental responsibility to send the feedback for you.

The nidirect privacy notice applies to any information you send on this feedback form.

Don't include any personal or financial information, for example National Insurance, credit card numbers, or phone numbers.

Plain text only, 750 characters maximum.
Plain text only, 750 characters maximum.

What to do next

Comments or queries about angling can be emailed to anglingcorrespondence@daera-ni.gov.uk 

What to do next

If you have a comment or query about benefits, you will need to contact the government department or agency which handles that benefit.  Contacts for common benefits are listed below.

Carer's Allowance

Call 0800 587 0912
Email dcs.incomingpostteamdhc2@nissa.gsi.gov.uk

Discretionary support / Short-term benefit advance

Call 0800 587 2750 
Email customerservice.unit@communities-ni.gov.uk

Disability Living Allowance

Call 0800 587 0912 
Email dcs.incomingpostteamdhc2@nissa.gsi.gov.uk

Employment and Support Allowance

Call 0800 587 1377

Jobseeker’s Allowance

Contact your local Jobs & Benefits office

Personal Independence Payment

Call 0800 587 0932

If your query is about another benefit, select ‘Other’ from the drop-down menu above.

What to do next

Comments or queries about the Blue Badge scheme can be emailed to bluebadges@infrastructure-ni.gov.uk or you can also call 0300 200 7818.

What to do next

For queries or advice about careers, contact the Careers Service.

What to do next

For queries or advice about Child Maintenance, contact the Child Maintenance Service.

What to do next

For queries or advice about claiming compensation due to a road problem, contact DFI Roads claim unit.

What to do next

For queries or advice about criminal record checks, email ani@accessni.gov.uk

What to do next

Application and payment queries can be emailed to ema_ni@slc.co.uk

What to do next

For queries or advice about employment rights, contact the Labour Relations Agency.

What to do next

For queries or advice about birth, death, marriage and civil partnership certificates and research, contact the General Register Office Northern Ireland (GRONI) by email gro_nisra@finance-ni.gov.uk

What to do next

For queries about:

If your query is about another topic, select ‘Other’ from the drop-down menu above.

What to do next

For queries or advice about passports, contact HM Passport Office.

What to do next

For queries or advice about Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs), including parking tickets and bus lane PCNs, email dcu@infrastructure-ni.gov.uk

What to do next

For queries or advice about pensions, contact the Northern Ireland Pension Centre.

What to do next

If you wish to report a problem with a road or street you can do so online in this section.

If you wish to check on a problem or fault you have already reported, contact DfI Roads.

What to do next

For queries or advice about historical, social or cultural records relating to Northern Ireland, use the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) enquiry service.

What to do next

For queries or advice about rates, email:
rating@lpsni.gov.uk

For queries or advice about property valuation, email:
valuation@lpsni.gov.uk

For queries or advice about land registry, email:
CustomerInformation.LandRegistration@finance-ni.gov.uk

For mapping queries, email:
Mapping.Helpdesk@finance-ni.gov.uk

What to do next

For queries or advice about  60+ and Senior Citizen SmartPasses (which can be used to get concessionary travel on public transport), contact Smartpass - Translink.