Risk Losing 3 Benefits? Ensure Your Home Complies With This Rule!

It’s a fact. For many tenants, financial assistance such as that provided by the Family Allowance Fund is crucial for housing, especially nowadays. With rising rent costs and often insufficient incomes to cover daily expenses, these aids become indispensable. They help lighten some bills and sometimes prevent having to make tough choices. Without this assistance, some might be forced to opt for smaller, more distant, or poorly maintained housing, or even give up their independence. However, it is essential to meet the agency’s conditions to continue receiving this aid.

Indeed, the Family Allowance Fund can stop the payment of aids if recipients no longer meet the eligibility criteria. At first thought, one might consider income or family status, but there is another critical aspect that the Fund strictly enforces: the decency of the housing. Since the Solidarity and Urban Renewal Act of December 13, 2000, known as the SRU law, every “landlord is required to provide the tenant with decent housing that does not present obvious risks that could harm physical safety or health and is equipped with elements making it suitable for living.”

Previously, for the suspension of benefits from the Family Allowance Fund, an expert had to visit and certify that the housing was not decent. Now, the withdrawal of aid is automatic if the housing is classified as G in the energy performance diagnostic (EPD). Today, decent housing must meet five criteria: “minimum surface and energy performance, no risk to the tenant’s safety and health, no pests or parasites, and provision of certain equipment,” as stated on the Public Service website.

If this is not the case, the landlord is obligated to undertake renovations within 18 months. During this period, the Family Allowance Fund holds the aids intended for the tenant, such as the personalized housing aid (PHA), social housing allowance (SHA), or family housing allowance (FHA). Meanwhile, the occupant of the housing continues to pay rent, subtracting the portion usually covered by the aid. This impacts the landlord since they receive reduced rent. At the end of the renovations, if they are carried out, all aids are returned to the landlord and their payment is restored. However, if “the renovations are not completed within the allotted time: the housing allowance retained by the Family Allowance Fund is definitively lost for the landlord, and the payment is discontinued,” according to an official document from the National Family Allowance Fund.