The latest edition of the Housing Costs Handbook is available now

Published by Chartered Institute of Housing and Shelter, the Housing Costs Handbook is an indispensable guide to help with housing costs for social tenants, private tenants, and homeowners.

Designed for easy use by renters and homeowners, local authority staff, tribunal members, and welfare and housing advisers, the handbook and its guidance applies to claimants in England, Scotland and Wales.

Sam Lister, CIH’s policy lead on welfare, housing law and the private rented sector, and co-author of Help with Housing Costs stressed how useful the latest edition is for housing professionals, commenting:

“The handbook is a really valuable resource for tenants and homeowners and anyone who supports them to manage their tenancies. The information is all up-to-date on current rules and legislation, and presented in an accessible way to make understanding housing costs as simple as possible. We encourage anyone working in local councils, registered social landlords, advisers, tribunal members and housing professionals to have access to a copy.”

Now combining housing benefit and universal credit in a single volume, the guide covers both working age and pension age claims for universal credit, housing benefit, state pension credit, support for mortgage interest and council tax rebates. This edition gives the rules from April 2025, including:

• Help for social housing tenants, private tenants, owners and shared owners
• Who can get benefit towards rent and/or service charges
• Transferring (or migrating) from the old benefits to universal credit
• Transitional protection to avoid you being worse off when you transfer
• The rules for supported housing and temporary accommodation
• How the bedroom tax and local housing allowance affect you
• How the two-child limit and the benefit cap work
• How to calculate all the benefits
• How other adults in your home can affect you
• How much income and capital you can have and still get benefit
• Who can get benefit during an absence from home or on two homes
• Support for mortgage interest for owners and share owners
• Council tax exemptions, discounts, disability reductions and rebates
• Discretionary housing payments
• How to claim and when you will be paid benefit
• Payments to landlords and mortgage lenders
• Repaying overpayments of benefit
• Asking for a reconsideration and how to appeal
• The rules for migrants and recent arrivals to the UK.

Find out more about the 2025/2026 housing costs handbook and purchase a copy for £70.50 on Shelter’s website here: https://england.shelter.org.uk/professional_resources/publications