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Crisis Loans
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What is a crisis loan?
When can I claim?
Notes about defining a crisis
How much is a crisis loan?
How to claim
Repaying the loan
What is a Crisis Loan?
• An interest-free loan made from the Social Fund, to meet urgent needs, when no other help is available. Crisis loans are designed to provide help in an emergency or a disaster.
When can I claim?
There are no specific rules about when a crisis loan can be made. Generally
applications are for:
• A specific item or service
or
• Immediate living expenses for a short period, not normally exceeding
14 days.
There are several factors considered in order to qualify for a crisis loan:
• The need for help must be in an emergency, or as a consequence
of a disaster
and
• A crisis loan must be the only means of preventing serious damage
or serious risk to your, or a member of your family's, health or safety.
• You must be aged 16 or over.
• You do not need to be receiving benefits in order to qualify.
Notes
Serious risk to health or safety means more than mere discomfort or inconvenience. However the risk does not necessarily have to be immediate, provided is it foreseeable if you continue to be without the item or service applied for. Also while the damage or risk to health or safety has to be serious, this does not necessarily mean that medical intervention would be required. The risk may be to mental or physical health.
While a crisis loan must be the only means of preventing the serious damage or serious risk to health or safety, any possible alternatives must be reasonable. For example you would not be expected to sell possessions or do anything illegal.
How much is a Crisis Loan?
This is a discretionary award and not a fixed sum. There is no minimum amount that can be awarded.
There is a maximum amount for help with daily living expenses, which is calculated according to the number of people in your family, and the weekly personal allowances of Income Support or Jobseeker's Allowance.
If the Crisis Loan is needed to buy a specific item, you will normally be awarded the amount requested, provided that the inspector judges this to be reasonable to meet the need.
Any savings you have will affect the amount you can receive.
The amount that you can repay will be taken into account when deciding how much you can be awarded.
There is also a rule that you cannot owe the Social Fund more than £1500, so if you have received loans in the past which you are still repaying, this may have an impact on what you can receive. If your debt to the fund is already £1500, you can't receive any Crisis Loan. You may, in some circumstances, still qualify for a Community Care Grant.
It is important to note that the Social Fund, from which Crisis Loans are made, has a fixed budget. Once the money in the fund has been allocated, no more will be available until the following year. However, if you meet all the qualification tests, your application should be sufficiently high priority for you to receive your Crisis Loan.
How to claim
In many areas, claims can be made over the telephone. Eventually, this should be the case throughout the country.
You can download a claim form here. You will need to give proof of identity and may need documentary evidence to support your claim.
Alternatively, you can get a claim form, SF401, from your local Jobcentre Plus office.
Repaying the loan
As mentioned above, your ability to repay the loan is taken into account when making the award.
If you receive benefits, the repayments will be deducted from them.
You are usually expected to allocate 5%, 10% or 12% of your income to repayments, depending on your other commitments. You will be asked to agree payment terms before the loan money is handed over.
The normal repayment term is 104 weeks.
If you run into problems making repayments, you can ask the Jobcentre Plus to consider rescheduling the loan.