Discretionary Housing Payments

Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) may be claimed if you receive housing benefit or housing costs within your Universal Credit, but are having difficulty paying the rest of your rent yourself.

What can I use DHP to pay for?

rent deposits

rent in advance

moving costs

rent arrears (but not if you were receiving enough housing benefit to pay all of your rent at the time the arrears built up)

a shortfall between housing benefit and rent

housing costs included in Universal Credit

A Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) cannot be paid if the reason for shortfall is that your housing benefit has been reduced to recover an overpayment or because your other benefits have been reduced, for example, because you left your last job voluntarily.

We will take into account any special circumstances that contribute to your financial difficulties for example, if:

you have to pay child maintenance

you have to pay legal costs

your heating costs are high as you spend a lot of time at home because of sickness or disability

you have additional travel costs because you travel to a doctor or hospital or you care for a relative or friend

your work-related travel costs have increased because you had to move as a result of cuts to local housing allowance

you are likely to become homeless if a payment is not made