Help with Housing Benefit Claim

djratty

Hi
I am in need of some advise.
I am 53 and in reciept of ESA (income related) and DLA (higher) and care at the middle rate I am in a rented house on full housing benefit. I am planning on moving to a 3 bedroomed house with my daugther and her 4 children. She is working 30 hrs per week. And claiming only child benefit.
Would be better getting the house in her name and me put a claim in for housing benefit or me getting the house and her pay whatever the council knock off for her income. The children are 3 girls aged 8, 7, and 4. and 1 boy age 1. We are viewing the house this afternoon.
Would be most gratefull for any advise.
Thanks
DJR

Benefits_Bod

As you are in receipt of the care component of DLA, there will be no "non-dependant" deduction in respect of your daughter when HB is assessed - her level of her income won't make any difference.

I am not an expert on ESA so the following information needs to be checked.

In cases of Income Support, income-based JSA and Pension Credit (Guaranteed element), the presence of your daughter would normally result in the "Severe Disability Premium" not being awarded - i.e. the level of those benefits would be reduced by £53.65 per week. If there is an equivalent provision for income-related ESA, the same reduction may also apply to you - this is the bit about which further advice should be sought.

djratty

Thanks for the quick reply.
Not yet in reciept of the Severe Disability Premium yet. Any idea of how long it takes? they sent me the forms, I hadn't heard of it before, I returned the forms about
2 1/2 - 3 months ago.
If she rented the house in her name, would I be able to claim the housing benefit for a single room ( It would be the downstairs front room,) while she would have the 3 rooms upstairs for herself and the children.

Benefits_Bod

djratty wrote: »

If she rented the house in her name, would I be able to claim the housing benefit for a single room ( It would be the downstairs front room,) while she would have the 3 rooms upstairs for herself and the children.

If the rent was payable by you to your daughter, no HB is payable. There is a specific provision that treats a person as not being liable to make payments where such payments are to a "close relative".

There is another possibility. You and your daughter *could* be joint tenants. Confusingly, the rules for HB and CTB are different. For CTB, the law would require the apportionment of any council tax liability to be 50/50 when assessing CTB.

However, for HB, eligible rent payments "...shall be apportioned for the purpose of calculating the eligible 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".

In theory, the Council could take a view that your portion of the whole liability should be assessed at less than 50% when calculating your HB entitlement.

One other note of caution. Take a bit of care about how you go about setting this up - if the Council considers the liability has been created to take advantage of the HB scheme (unfairly or improperly) , no HB will be payable.

In other words, there is a balance between maximising your HB entitlement and taking the proverbial .

{Edited for clarity}