Before civil partnerships, gay couples were never held to be cohabiting simply because there is no such thing as gay marriage. Only a man and a woman can marry, and there is a bar to incestuous marriages, and so a brother and sister can never live as husband and wife.
It is wrong to approach the issue as a tick sheet and the relationship must be looked at in the round (CP/8001/1995), but where there is an absolute bar to marriage it is equally true that they can not live together as husband and wife. This was held to be the case in CFC/007/1992 where it was held that a girl under sixteen was not living as husband and wife with the father of her child – simply because she was under 16 , (although Mr Commissioner Rice did also put a lot of weight onto the notion that a girl under 16 is a child for the purposes of the 1992 Act, and the definition of a married or unmarried couple is “a man and a woman……. )
As “Mrs” gets IS as a single person, you cannot asess them as a couple in any case (See R v Housing Benefit Review Board of Penwith District Council ex p Menear QBD 11 October 1991.) If they are joint tenants, you will have to decide the most appropriate way of apportioning the rent between them. If not, then you will need to consider the matter of him being a non dependant
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