Board & Lodging Cases – mutually exclusive to Ctax liabi
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October 24, 2006 at 3:50 pm #22965
juju
ParticipantWe have a problem in our authority relating to B&L cases that I would be grateful for some opinions/thoughts on.
B&L cases are paid via a LA rent account so for HB purposes the landlord is the LA. The Housing department have their own contractual arrangement with the owner of the property. We pay HB at threshold level as B&L and claim subsidy on that basis.
The owner of the property has now had a number of properties banded for CTax as self-contained accommodation – going back a number of years. If the property is self-contained then it cannot be B&L – the definition of B&L:
[color=red:0a1a392696][i:0a1a392696]in the Income -Related benefits (Subsidy to Authorities) Order 1998, Part III para 11(1) and says: “board and lodging accommodation” means (a) accommodation provided for a charge which is inclusive of the provision of that accommodation and at least some cooked or prepared meals which are both cooked or prepared or consumed in that accommodation or associated premises; or (b) accommodation provided in a hotel, guest house, lodging house or similar establishment. ………….[/i:0a1a392696][/color:0a1a392696]
From discussion with our Housing department it seems they were aware that these properties were in fact self-contained.
Questions:
1. Can we pay CTB? How can we claim subsidy as B&L and then pay CTB for same period when the definition makes them mutually exclusive?
2. What is the responsibility of the landlord here? Should the housing department be charging for accommodation that is in fact not actually the accommodation it is stated to be?Anyone else come across anything like this? Whether the person ever claimed CTB is a separate issue – at this stage I merely want to establish if CTB can even be considered.
October 24, 2006 at 4:16 pm #10380Anonymous
GuestThis reminds me of a scam that was perpetrated by a group of landlords in Cardiff in the early 1990’s although at the time the issue was either collective or individual poll tax.
The landlords were raking it in by letting out flats and houses to homeless families on a so called B&B basis. The so called breakfast was a packet of cornflakes from one of the landord’s supermarket once a week, plus a pint of milk a day.
They were eventually prosecuted for conspiracy to defraud and got two years a piece. The judge told the jury in no uncertain terms that B&L must involve a preapred meal and a box of cornflakes plus a bottle of milk is not a prepared meal, it is simply the provison of soem groceries.
I said at the time that nobody would rent a self contained property on a B&L basis. Why would you want someone cooking meals for you on a regular basis at great expense, and have hire out your own kitchen for them to do it?
You might want to do that for a special party, but not every day.
Some very basic questions that need to be asked are:
1) What do the meals consist of?
2)Where are they prepared?
3)Who prepares them?
4) What time are they prepared?
5)Where are they consumed?
6) What time are they comsumed?Only then will you be able to decide whther this is a genuine or sham B&L arrangement
October 24, 2006 at 4:39 pm #10381juju
ParticipantI think the scenario you describe is exactly what was happening – some cereal and a bottle of milk.
What do you do when it is your own authority who is party to the sham?
October 24, 2006 at 5:32 pm #10382Anonymous
GuestYou could refuse to pay under Reg 9, but you will be putting your neck on the block and unless its made completely of brass you could get it chopped.
The landlords in Cardfiff did not have a deal with the LA in wayyour landlords do so they were rent allowance cases. I was an assessor at the time and I confess that I found paying them intolerable. They were Rachmans, but a significant number of their tenants got some good advice and had the HB paid to themselves and then used it to get somewhere decent.
The tenants were not invloved in the fraud becuase the landlords filled out the questions regarding the rent
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