Course Outline

Improve your decision making so that you can deal with claims from tenants with confidence.

Supported accommodation claims can be complex and costly in terms of subsidy loss, if they are not handled correctly. In this course, you will learn what constitutes a not-for-profit landlord, whether rent charges should be covered in full and whether support is provided by a landlord or on behalf of a landlord.

The course also looks at the future of supported accommodation and the new proposals to develop a new ‘sheltered rent’ for sheltered and extra care housing and localise funding for short-term housing needs such as hostels etc.

This course is written by our experts who have over 25 years’ experience in local authority legislation and is tailored to your requirements.

What will I learn?

By the end of this Supported Accommodation course, you will be able to:

• Identify supported exempt accommodation and landlord type.
• Understand the requirements for support, care and supervision.
• Apply appropriate values to service charges, incorporated in these tenancies.
• Establish the additional responsibilities and service provision required by the landlord.
• Understand the financial impact on the Subsidy claim and the capacity of the local authority.
• Use relevant case law to assist in your decision making and subsequent reconsideration requests.
• Understand the future funding proposals for supported accommodation.

Who's it for?

There are no formal pre-requisites for this course, but we would suggest that you have some experience in housing benefits to be able to make the most of this content. The course is aimed at: Benefit assessors, Team leaders and managers, Housing officers, Welfare advisors, Customer service officers.

Course content

• Supported Accommodation
• What is ‘Exempt Accommodation’?
• Care, Support or Supervision
• Responsibilities of the Decision Maker
• Dealing with Exempt Accommodation under the Old Scheme Rules
• The Impact of Universal Credit on those living in Supported Exempt Accommodation
• Specified Accommodation
• Making a claim for Universal Credit and HB
• Moving into or out of exempt accommodation and on or off Universal Credit Housing Costs.
• The Benefit Cap
• Some useful Commissioner’s Decisions