Terms & Conditions

[Anonymous]

We have a hostel that provides accommodation for single people.

Two of their tenants are getting married in October but as a condition of there tenancy they are not able to share a room, therefore would require HB for two rooms.

How would you treat this?

Thanks

[Darren W]

I assume that they are not liable for CTAX being a hostel? We have a number of HMO’s where we sometimes have familys living in two rooms. We set this up on our system as one so for instance Room 2&3. We would then referal that to the rent officer with what ever rent was being charged.

Hope this helps.

[peterdelamothe]

As two single people who are not living in each other’s household. Its slightly different if you have a family sleeping in one room and living in the other.

You also have to be careful of falling foul of the “two homes” rules – the two rooms will not normally be one dwelling. I any case, marriage is not recognised in the regs and has no particular relevance.

[Anonymous]

I,m not really sure what you are trying to say. They don’t actually need the two rooms it is just a condition of the tenancy for the hostel that they only accept single people.

Should we therefore be paying them as two single people as we currently do as two separate claims, two rent payments? and treat them as being ‘separated’ due to tenancy conditions

[Julian Hobson]

Bit of a can of worms.

Chez are you saying that your couple share a single room and occupy that as their home, and don’t occupy the other one.

Looks to me as though you should question the L/L’s motive here, either they occupy both rooms or they don’t.

If the L/L is turning a blind eye to the fact they aren’t single in order to continue providing them with Accom for single people, why should the benefits pot pick up the tab. Why doesn’t the L/L simply bite the bullet and put someone in the other room?

Alternatively if they are occupying both rooms there is no doubt in my mind that you could treat that as one dwelling and aggregate the rents. I’d want some assurance that they were occupying and using both rooms and that this wasn’t just a way of getting around the first problem. If one room was for sleeping and the other for sitting and watching TV (or whatever else it is they might do in their room(s)) I really don’t see how this would be anything other than one dwelling.

Looks like its down to the L/L really.

[Anonymous]

Sorry to re-raise this one but this couple have just got married and it has raised its ugly head again.

The conditions of the tenancy are that they only have single people occupying rooms on a permanent basis. This couple have been given 28 days notice.

However, in the meantime we now need to know how to treat them. They are allowed an overnight guest 2 nights a week each. So for 4 nights they are sleeping in the same room together. The other 3 nights they sleep on their own in their own rooms.

Would you aggregate the two rents and pay as one or would you only pay for one room?? Any regs to support the decision would be lovely as the landlords are not very happy about the couple actually staying in the property at all!!

[Author]

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