Housing Benefit guide Discussion Area

Tinabe

Hi

Please can someone offer any advice with my son's problem. He has moved out and is renting a room from a friend. He is under 35. He has applied for LHA but has been refused apparently its not deemed a commercial let. His friend is not letting him live there rent free!

He wants to appeal this decision. Does anyone have any advice on how to go about this? Has anyone else been in a similar position?

Tally-Ho_2

Tinabe wrote: »

Hi

Please can someone offer any advice with my son's problem. He has moved out and is renting a room from a friend. He is under 35. He has applied for LHA but has been refused apparently its not deemed a commercial let. His friend is not letting him live there rent free!

He wants to appeal this decision. Does anyone have any advice on how to go about this? Has anyone else been in a similar position?

Hi,

No doubt the council/appeal are seeking evidence to dis-prove that:

1. Your son and his landlord/landlady are not living together as partners.

2. It is not a contrived tenancy.

Your son would need to provide evidence such as to show who sleeps where, to show who pays the household bills, show a formal tenancy agreement, provide a rent book or bank statement evidence of regular rent payments to the landlord/landlady etc. Without evidence such as this the council will believe it is a case of either 1 or 2 above.

The onus will be on your son to provide the above mentioned sort of evidence to the appeal in order to establish that they are not living together as partners and that it is a genuine tenancy.

Tally

BigAunty

silver_ghost wrote: »

..





How correct this is,I am not certain.Will look into it further.Its a bit confusing with paragraph one saying one thing and paragraph two seemingly contradicting it.

Very interesting, worth keeping an eye on. It looks like the implementation of UC may have the capacity to wipe out the current planned exemption for those receiving PC under state pension age and it still needs clarification if that's the case. Sometimes new benefit changes protect a previous status, or only make it apply for a new claim, sometimes they are imposed for all.

jken_3

Suppose an adult in a family gets disability benefits, housing benfits and council tax benefits. Would this be cut if another adult in the family works for 15 hours and earns less than £97 per week?
If so then by how much?

enabledebra

There's still a chance to feed into how universal credit will work. If you have strong opinions make them count.

http://ssac.independent.gov.uk/consult.shtml

http://ssac.independent.gov.uk/pdf/universal-credit-regs-call-for-evidence.pdf

BigAunty

jken wrote: »

Suppose an adult in a family gets disability benefits, housing benfits and council tax benefits. Would this be cut if another adult in the family works for 15 hours and earns less than £97 per week?
If so then by how much?

Your local council should have published on their website a list of
non-dependent deductions that details the criteria and sums involved. In the meantime, here is a link.

http://www.tameside.gov.uk/housingbenefit/nondependentdeductions

sandra21_2

I received info from my Housing Association that anyone having more than the necessary bedrooms will have a discount applied. 14% for 1 extra room.
I accept that they want people to move out of 3 bed into 2 when there is only 2 bedrooms occupied, but as usuial they are not thinking it through.
I am disabled and in a 3 bed house with my son. I have an adapted wetroom, and a stairlift. Willing to move, but there is no accommodation suitable for me, so why should I (and others like me) have to get this discount applied.
There are plenty of 2 bed houses and people to swap to a 3 beds. But getting a 2 bed house or bungalow with fully adapted bathroom, and parking available is practically non-existent. There should be a way round this. Maybe having to have my name included in a housing swap list, and not penalised because I cannot accept just any accommodation.

meg2101

sandra21 wrote: »

I received info from my Housing Association that anyone having more than the necessary bedrooms will have a discount applied. 14% for 1 extra room.
I accept that they want people to move out of 3 bed into 2 when there is only 2 bedrooms occupied, but as usuial they are not thinking it through.
I am disabled and in a 3 bed house with my son. I have an adapted wetroom, and a stairlift. Willing to move, but there is no accommodation suitable for me, so why should I (and others like me) have to get this discount applied.
There are plenty of 2 bed houses and people to swap to a 3 beds. But getting a 2 bed house or bungalow with fully adapted bathroom, and parking available is practically non-existent. There should be a way round this. Maybe having to have my name included in a housing swap list, and not penalised because I cannot accept just any accommodation.

I am in a similar situation, I have 2 daughters aged 11 and 8, I accept they can share a room even though they do not right now. I had a grant of £30,000 7 years ago for a downstairs bedroom and wet room, also other adaptatons to make my home wheelchair accessible which it is (I am confined to a wheelchair) I am married. I was rudely told by my LHA that it was "tough" and if I wanted to stay where I am I had to pay for the third bedroom. They don't seem to understand there are no two bed properties to accommodate me my Daughter also has the same disability as me even though thankfully at this time she does not need a wheelchair.
This new legislation is targeting the wrong people, I do not have a choice of where I can live, I have to live where I am able to. I'd be quite happy to live in a smaller home with less household costs and energy bills, less garden maintenence etc but I do NOT have that choice I live here through necessity.

coffeelover65

meg2101 wrote: »

I was rudely told by my LHA that it was "tough" and if I wanted to stay where I am I had to pay for the third bedroom. They don't seem to understand there are no two bed properties to accommodate me my Daughter also has the same disability as me even though thankfully at this time she does not need a wheelchair.

The council don't have any discretion in the matter, the changes are been imposed by the government. They know there is nowhere near enough properties for everyone to move into the correct sized properties and they "savings" the government are making are dependent on making people like you staying put and making up the shortfall out of your other income.

Heycock

I seem to remember IDS being told that the changes would have a unfairly detrimental effect on those in care/disability situations and his response was that it was never intended that way and he'd look again. All I know is that the latest edition of the explanatory leaflet specifically excludes exemptions even for medical reasons. All we can do is petition our local MP's to demand that Cameron honours his pledge to put carers and their families at the forefront of social policy. Not holding my breath. And if truth be told the identikit politicos on the opposite benches won't change much either if they get returned in 2015.
Our problem as carers is that we have too much on our plate already than to spend time taking to the streets like other pressure groups. AgeUK and all the other carer pressure groups do their best but what they usually hear is something like..."Yes we hear you" which we all know means go away, you're not strong enough to make us see sense"
BTW I am my wife's carer. She has early onset dementia. Certain problems mean its usually better(essential most of the time) for me to use another bedroom. Being married we get the one room rate because policy deems the 2nd room is a luxury.
In our case the benefit situation is under control and it's not going to break us but I'm complaining on behalf of the less fortunate.