Terms & Conditions

[GHE]

On the tenancy agreement there is a mother, her son and daughter in law. Council tax have all three as joint and several.

The mother has made a claim and the son and wife have made a claim. What percentage would you pay on each claim for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit?

The tenancy agreement doesn’t detail what percentage each is liable to pay.

[Anonymous]

At risk of doung Red Baron impersonation (being shot down in flames!!) if you are happy with the fact that all three are joint tenants, I would divvy it up as two thirds for the son and his wife, one third to the mother, with the same apportionment for CTB. 8)

[Anonymous]

I would divvy up under how many bedrooms are in the property and who uses them (e.g if son and wife have 1 bed and they have kids who use 2 beds then son and wife get HB on 75%).

[GHE]

The mother has one dep on her claim and the son and partner have 3 deps and a non dep on theirs. There are 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and 3 living rooms.The non dep has a bedroom, bathroom and living room to himself as he is smi. Beyond this we have no further knowledge on how the house is used.

The rent is phenomenal for this area and the rent officer has come back with a local rent reference. They have now put in for DHP’S as well.

It has been currently assessed on a 50% liability basis which I feel is incorrect as it is apparent that one household has more use of the home than the other. I don’t feel that it is a true 50% liability

[Anonymous]

I agree 50% is wrong but without knowing who uses what rooms (or who is sharing with whom) I don’t think you can make a decision. You need more info.

[Anonymous]

Why, Martin?
They are all three renting the property.
They are all three “equally” liable, why bother with a room count?

It seems to me to be overcomplicating matters to do a room count, when we know how many people are liable, though from Grahame’s second post this is obviously not a straight forward situation.

I would still go two thirds / one third on the rent, and if CT have made them all liable, this has to be the right way to apportion liability here as well.
I think it would be far easier for your customer(s) to understand if you apply the same criteria to both HB and CTB decisions, than introducing something else into the equation. 8)

[Carol Meredith]

I agree with Jon on this one. The tenancy agreement is for 3 tenants, two of which are a couple. It makes no mention of rooms used etc. Three people are therefore liable for one third each. So for HB purposes the coupe have a two thirds liability and the mother has a third liabilty. Its exactly the same for CT. However I would apply the non dep deuction to the son and daughter’s claim only as this person “belongs” to their claim.

[Jules]

I agree with Carol and John.

If you had a claim from 3 ‘normal’ joint tenants you wouldn’t think about who has what rooms but just look at who is on the tenancy agreement and who is liable for Council Tax. They are all jointly and severally liable so I don’t really see how this claim is any different from a normal joint tenancy.

[Anonymous]

I’m sticking to my guns. 😀

If claimant A (and family) occupy 80% of a property and claimant B (and family) occupy 20% then sheer fairness means the rent should be apportioned accordingly.

[Carol Meredith]

Martin, under your way of doing things if the non dep moves out or one of them gives birth (maybe to twins) you would reapportion the rent. This would be a nightmare to administer (and explain). I still think it has to be two thirds and one third.

Carol

[Anonymous]

I’m still sticking to my guns. 🙂

Carol, I’m apportioning the rent by the number of rooms occupied by a particular family, not the amount of people in the room.

Secondly, just suppose you had 2 joint tenants and 1 of them shows you proof that they are paying more for their room because it’s bigger. In that case surely you wouldn’t split the rent 50/50 as you wouldn’t be assessing on the rent the person actually pays!

[Anonymous]

In for a penny….

Yep, I’d go with the Carol and Jon scenario – 2 thirds and 1 third for both rent and CTB.

[Bobkirkpatrick]

Regulation 12(5) states that in the case of joint tenancies the rent shall be apportioned “for the purposes of calculatoing the ligible rent for each such person having regard to all the circumstances, in particular the number of such persons and the proportion of rent paid by each such person.”

As such, therefore, you have to take into account all the circumstances. Useful guidance was given in CH/3376/2002.

As there isn’t a fixed rule, there is scope for apportioning the rent in such a way as to provide the best outcome for the claimants. If you have an anti-poverty strategy, or are interested in income maximisation, then this would be quite appropriate. The opposite of this approach is to apportion the rent in such a way that HB expenditure is minimised. Fine, if you see your role as protecting the public purse to that extent. Otherwise, why not go for the way that is the most beneficial for the family concerned?

Of course, it may not be possible to do this if their circumstances are fluid, and what might be beneficial this week won’t be so beneficial in a few months time. It would therefore make sense to look closely at how the family is occupying the property.

There are two households – mother and dependant, and son/daughter-in-law and three dependants/one non-dependant. You really need to know how the 5 bedrooms and 3 living rooms are being used. The non-dependant is using 2 rooms; the chances are the mother and her non-dependant are using 2 bedrooms; and the son/daughter-in-law using either the remaining 4 rooms, or 3 of these rooms, with a living room shared by all the occupants. The mother is clearly using less of the accommodation than the others – therefore the apportionment should reflect that. It may therefore be more appropriate to apportion the rent 25%/75%.

If you had three joint-tenants sharing a property with two single bedrooms and one double bedroom – it might be appropriate to apportion the rent in such a way that the occupier of the double bedroom has a larger share than the other two.

Similarly, if it was case of a mother and a son and daughter-in-law in a two bedroom property, you wouldn’t split the rent three ways – a fairer apportionment would be 50/50, reflecting the use of the property by the two households.

But, as I said, if there is scope for an imaginative solution, that maximises benefit income for both households, then why not go for that?

[anthony]

I agree that it is good to maximise the benefit paid in a situation like this – at least up to the level each applicant is expecting.

I think this thread has had too much focus on how many rooms are occupied by each household. The number of rooms used is not the basis for the apportionment according to the regs. It is a possible indicator of how much the the two applicants are liable to pay, but that is all.

Far better to ask them how much they agreed amongst themselves to pay and to use that as the basis. This has the advantage of still making sense if one household stops claiming for any reason.

As there probably wont be any written agreement about this the LA could just phone them up and ask them. – One or other household can put it in writing to the LA, but I wouldn’t hold up the assessment if their statement seemed reasonable.

(on the other hand, they might say that the non-dep had agreed to pay toward it, in which case all bets are off ;o)

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