Terms & Conditions

[s_tucker]

Claimant (Mr X) is currently resident in a hospital and has been on and off for the past year. He is suffering from severe depression and maladaptive and immature personality traits. This has been an ongoing situation and circumstance for claimant for a number of years. He has made numerous suicide attempts and copes poorly with stressful situations and particularly that of his home life. While he is on regular medication and has the on-going support of a Community Psychiatric Nurse, it is felt that his condition is not likely to improve in the near future. He has a long standing and enduring mental illness.

Mr X is married and has 5 children, 3 of these children have severe physical, mental and emotional difficulties. One son lives away at boarding school in the week and is only home at weekends. He suffers with ADHD, dyslexia, attachment disorder, severe anxiety and has had suicidal thoughts. 2 of the younger children suffer with similar disabilities. They need a stable environment to cope with ordinary activities. they have been extremeley disrupted by their father’s many admissions to hospital.

It is felt by many health professionals that it is not advisable for claimant to return to the family home, either for himself or for the well-being of the children involved. Mr X therefore cannot return to the family home at the point of discharge from hospital. He has been advised that with the help of the Community Mental Health Team, he should be living independently.

The family reside in a 5 bed property with a couple of acres of land attached. There is no mortgage on the property. Mr and Mrs X are joint owner/occupiers. I am unsure as to the value of the property and the potential equity in it. Mrs X has stated that the children would be unable to cope with a move and that they each need a seperate bedrooms because of their needs. She states that this can be verified by the children’s various consultants and specialists. She is therefore suggesting that the property remain with her and the children for the time being until such time as the youngest child turns 18 years. At this stage they will re-evaluate the situation and potentially downsize, allowing Mr X to then access his share of the property.

Mrs X has consulted a solicitor. They have stated that there is no legal agreement that the couple can sign to make this arrangement binding. Due to the fact that the couple, while they do not live together and their finances are seperate, are not formally seperating or divorcing, the solicitor cannot draw up such an arrangement. Due to the fact that they still have a sexual relationship they cannot be seen in the eyes of the law as ‘seperated’.

If Mr X secures accommodation in the private sector or indeed through social housing, he is unable to finance the rent. He is unable to force the sale on his current property and he is also unable to return to the family home for health reasons.

I know we can treat him as eligible for HB on his own on the basis that he will be occupying his own home separately from his wife/children but would we have to take into account the capital asset etc.

Has anyone come across this before or know of any legislation/caselaw that may help our decision?

Thanks in advance
Sarah

[Anonymous]

Sarah
You could get round this by taking into account his capital asset (half the land and property), which I think it is correct to do, but giving it a value of “nil”, on the grounds that half of the property with a sitting tenant / half owner may well be worthless in the eyes of the market anyway. 8)

[Anonymous]

You will have to get clt’s share of property valued but VO will give value based on what that share could reasonably realise at auction etc – you may be surprised how high this still is

[Anonymous]

No need to worry about valuations.

Extracts from Schedule 6 to the HB Regs (capital to be disregarded):

[color=blue:9f51388493]4. Any premises occupied in whole or in part—

… (b) by the former partner of the claimant as his home; but this provision shall not apply where the former partner is a person from whom the claimant is estranged or divorced or with whom he had formed a civil partnership that has been dissolved.

25. —(1) Where a claimant has ceased to occupy what was formerly the dwelling occupied as the home following his estrangement or divorce from, or dissolution of his civil partnership with, his former partner, that dwelling for a period of 26 weeks from the date on which he ceased to occupy that dwelling or, where the dwelling is occupied as the home by the former partner who is a lone parent, for so long as it is so occupied.[/color:9f51388493]
So either way the property is disregarded: if they are not estranged, para 4 applies, and if they are estranged she is a lone parent so para 25 applies. I would add that this is exactly the kind of situation that para 4 is aimed at.

[Anonymous]

Sorry Peter, don’t agree. On the facts presented the couple are not estranged and therefore the wife is not a former partner. JMO

[Anonymous]

I used to wonder how someone could be a former partner and yet not estranged, and the only sensible view I can reach is that “former partner” means no longer a partner as defined for benefit purposes: someone with whom you used to share a household as a couple, and now you don’t anymore. Estranged means they have split up and don’t consider themselves an item anymore, not estranged means that circumstances have forced them to live apart, as in this case. I would say this is a textbook Sched 6.4 case.

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