Does Anyone Know If You Get Any Help With

[emmie]

housing and council tax benefits if your savings are well under
16,000. or does it depend of your council?

[Barmaid]

The best thing to do is look on your Council's website. I understood that HB and CTB were only paid with other "passport" benefits.

[aelmpvw]

to keep it short 'pension credit' should be available on savings under 16 grand

[albaqwerty]

I know the application form for application for HB and CTB ask about savings, property abroad and household income but I don't know about savings, sorry.
Follow BM's advice (or give them a phone?)

[emmie]

trying not to phone them, their 50 options on the telephone drives me bloody bonkers.

[EDDIE51]

Use this calculator it's easy to use and accurate
http://www.entitledto.co.uk/benefits-calculator/entitlement-calculator.aspx
It tells you all benefits you are entitled to and is a lot easier than going to the council web site or phone line.

[trt]

# to keep it short 'pension credit' should be available on savings under 16 grand #

If you are not over 60yrs.

[Buenchico]

There's nothing in your post, Emmie, about your income.

Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction are both available to people who've got low incomes (irrespective of whether that's because they're on things like Job Seeker's allowance or just because they don't earn much or get much from their pensions). To qualify they usually need to have savings of less than £16,000 (but the amount they get will probably start to reduce if their savings are over £5000).

Housing Benefit is a national scheme but there are regional differences in the amounts that can be paid (based upon typical costs of renting across different areas, rather than individual council policies). So people living in central London can receive more than those in, say, Tyneside, simply because rents are so much higher in London.

The basic rules about Council Tax Reduction are set nationally but it's up to individual councils to decide the maximum discounts which can be applied in their areas.

[Buenchico]

^^^ With regard to Pension Credit (since it's been mentioned above), the qualifying age has gradually been rising in line with the State Pension Age for women. (i.e. it's no longer fixed at 60).

I started receiving Pension Credit last year, at the age of 63 years 3 months, because that's when a woman who was born on the same day as me would qualify for her State Pension. The qualifying age will have continued to rise since then.