The following excerpt from our training notes was nicked wholesale from an old hbinfo post, apologies to the plagiaree
There are some special rules to deal with “young individuals” who have meals included as part of their rent. You’ll find them in HB Reg 11(3A).
When the Rent Officer calculates a single room rent they don’t take account of meals at all. But in any case where meals are included they DO still give you a Single Room Rent figure.
To calculate the maximum rent you have to compare the Claim Related Rent/Local Reference Rent figure minus a meals deduction (let’s call this “A”) with the Single Room Rent Figure without a meals deduction (let’s call this “B”).
The maximum rent is then the lowest of either “A” or “B”.
For example, if the SRR is £70 and the Claim Related Rent is £80 minus a £20.05 meals deduction (i.e. £59.95) then the maximum rent is £59.95 – not £70 – and not £70 minus £20.05 either!
(To add to this, you would not deduct service charges from the SRR unless the rent charged less the service charges was less than the SRR)
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