What can I afford?

The answers you can get

• Affordable

  After rent and estimated bills, what's left meets a minimum living standard.

• Affordable with a gap

  It works out, but it's tight — there's little headroom above the minimum.

• Affordable with risk

  It only adds up because of non-earned or third-party income that may not last. Treat it as conditional.

• Not affordable

  After rent and estimated bills, what's left falls below the minimum living standard.

• Need a bit more info

  We can't screen yet — a key detail (like postcode, rent, or income) is missing.

How it works, step by step

1. 1. Check we have enough to go on

   If the postcode, rent, your age, whether you're on Universal Credit, or your take-home pay is missing, we stop and ask for it rather than guess.

2. 2. Work out your bedroom entitlement

   Using Universal Credit size rules: a couple shares; each other adult gets a room; children are paired by age and sex; an overnight carer adds one. Capped at four bedrooms.

3. 3. Look up your Local Housing Allowance

   We map the postcode to its Broad Rental Market Area and pull the official LHA rate for your bedroom entitlement.

4. 4. Apply the Shared Accommodation Rate

   If you're single, under 35 and without children, support is limited to the shared-room rate rather than a one-bedroom rate.

5. 5. Compare rent to the housing support

   Housing support is capped at the LHA rate. We work out any gap (rent above LHA) or headroom (LHA above rent).

6. 6. Factor in the benefit cap and Universal Credit

   We flag whether the benefit cap is likely to apply, and apply a directional Universal Credit taper on earnings — this is an estimate, not an entitlement calculation.

7. 7. The residual-income test

   Finally: take-home income minus rent minus estimated bills, compared to a minimum living standard. That decides the verdict.

Where the numbers come from

Some figures are official; two are our own estimates. We'd rather be upfront about which is which.

• LHA / BRMA ratesOfficial source

  VOA LHA Direct (lha-direct.voa.gov.uk). Real, official rates — but national LHA rates are frozen at April 2024 levels through at least April 2027, so they increasingly lag real-world rents.

• Universal Credit allowances, child element, benefit cap, earnings thresholdOfficial source

  Official GOV.UK figures, uprated each April (we use the 2026/27 set). The benefit cap is frozen.

• Bedroom & Shared Accommodation Rate rulesOfficial source

  Universal Credit size criteria — real, official rules.

• Council tax & utility billsOur estimate

  A flat internal estimate used for screening only. It is not a real bill for any specific property and does not track Ofgem or your local council's rates.

• Minimum living standardOur estimate

  An internal screening floor — looser than the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's Minimum Income Standard. It is a policy benchmark, not a statutory figure.

What it doesn't do well

• It covers private rented homes only — not supported, temporary, or social housing.
• The Universal Credit figure is directional: it ignores assessment-period timing, deductions, transitional protection, childcare costs, sanctions and complex disability/LCWRA situations.
• Bills and the minimum living standard are our own screening numbers, not your actual budget.
• It's least accurate for families, anyone with childcare or complex disability circumstances, and areas where the frozen LHA badly lags real rents.