on ESA & affected by bedroom tax - trying to work out how to manage renting a room

Angelicdevil

Something to note, perhaps, is that student lets generally run from the start of the university term, til the end of term (iirc, May). This does not cover summer, so unless your son is planning on paying extra to stay in his student house over summer, he will be coming home? Therefore he'll be back with you and you'll be sorted, as per pmlindyloo's link above.

povertytrap

pmlindyloo wrote: »

I do not want to labour the point but all my reading tells me that if your son intends to return home, is not away longer than 52 weeks and is not receiving HB at his university place then you are entitled to a room for him.

The legislation is here:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2006/213/regulation/7/made

I am willing to be proved wrong but as far as I am aware this has not changed although I believe it may be reduced to 6 months under Universal Credits.

Of course I do not know if your son is near enough to return home on a fairly regular basis and I do not know if he intends to return home at the end of university but I would be inclined to challenge the information that you have been given.

The other point is that you would not be able to 'let' his room while he was away.

It is also on Shelter's website. Perhaps a call to them may clarify things as I may have 'missed' something.

Thanks for this, the information I had was that if he moved from halls of residence into private rented accommodation near to university for the rest of his course, that they would then take that as his main address - I can remember having a conversation on the phone with someone from the Council. I will definitely check this and give the housing benefit department another ring tomorrow.

Having said this though, if the goalposts move under universal credit, then I will be stuck only a little way in the future so need to plan ahead as far as I can now..

To be honest I envisage that he would like to come home for at least a period of time after university while he's finding his feet, but may need to move area in order to find work.

povertytrap

I have just had a telephone conversation with someone at the Council again and they insisted that it was definitely the case that once my son moves out of halls of residence, his bedroom at home will be considered spare for bedroom tax purposes as they will consider his room in his shared house, his main address. I seem to have hit a wall with them, and am unsure whether to go to the Citizens advice bureau.

Now that i've written the above, I've just seen your mention of Shelter again so will give them a quick call.

povertytrap

Just to update, I spoke with someone at Shelter and she said that while on the one hand the government states that a student can have a main residence with me because he's not away for more than 52 weeks of the year, because of a ruling on a case involving LHA which decided that this just applied to eligibility for LHA only while in halls of residence and not in a rented student house, the decision is with the local council whether they consider that also means they can stop Housing Benefit when a student moves into a rented house - even though the student would come back.

Basically the government hasn't made it clear in light of this case, what the position is.

She said that the only way forward would be to challenge the council's decision and see the CAB to make a case, but that I would not be elgible for legal aid because that has been stopped.

Housing_Benefit_Officer

If you include breakfast or a meal with the rent so your tenant is a lodger then the first £20 is disregarded and then 50% of the rest of the rent is disregarded.

povertytrap

Housing_Benefit_Officer wrote: »

If you include breakfast or a meal with the rent so your tenant is a lodger then the first £20 is disregarded and then 50% of the rest of the rent is disregarded.

Thanks for mentioning this - I hadn't heard of this - that 50% of the rest of the rent would be disregarded - I would like to get confirmation of this as I'm pretty sure it wasn't mentioned.

I'm still not sure that would cover all the costs - I find working things out like this a bit stressful.

I could probably rent the room for £100 per week - which would then mean I could keep £60 per week which is £260 per month.

From that, I'd have to deduct :-

cost of furnishings - ?
maintaining decoration (its a large room)- ?
extra home insurance - ??
cost of providing electric bill (there is a convector heater in the bedroom which I can't regulate) - £60-100 per month?
water meter bill - £25 per month
loss of single person's council tax benefit - £88 per month
breakfast cereal/toast/jam & tea/milk - £6? per week

I'm really concerned that it would be someone who is considerate with the electric heating - at the moment I have it on for the minimum amount of time and hardly use my own heater in the bedroom to save costs.

I guess I need to check with my electricity company what the cost of using the convector heater is per hour and then calculate the worst case scenario of them leaving it on all the time.

Would I have to serve them breakfast, or could they help themselves to what's there?

I also don't currently have a tv to save costs, so I'm wondering if I would have to provide one for them and pay for a licence.

lighting_up_the_chalice

Unless your council tax is over £4000 a year, your discount loss will be far lower than £88 per month.

pmlindyloo

povertytrap wrote: »

Just to update, I spoke with someone at Shelter and she said that while on the one hand the government states that a student can have a main residence with me because he's not away for more than 52 weeks of the year, because of a ruling on a case involving LHA which decided that this just applied to eligibility for LHA only while in halls of residence and not in a rented student house, the decision is with the local council whether they consider that also means they can stop Housing Benefit when a student moves into a rented house - even though the student would come back.

Basically the government hasn't made it clear in light of this case, what the position is.

She said that the only way forward would be to challenge the council's decision and see the CAB to make a case, but that I would not be elgible for legal aid because that has been stopped.

If you wanted to appeal this decision from your council then CAB would help you to do so.

Legal Aid is still available for certain appeal processes so although a generalist advisor at CAB might be able to help, access to a housing specialist at your bureau would be the best option. (At our local CAB we have a housing solicitor but I know this is unusual)

I do understand your reluctance to pursue this but what will you do if/when your son wants to come home during the holidays?

My kids are 28 years old and they still see this as their home and I have boxes in the loft of their belongings to remind me!

I would be very interested to see the case that Shelter spoke about.

If you are not interested in appealing the decision then are you able to do any permitted work whilst you are on ESA? (google to find out the details)

This would give you extra income and allow you to make up the housing benefit deduction and keep your second bedroom.

Nada666

I don't understand the problem. If you want a lodger take a lodger. Don't if you don't. But there is little financial complication:

charge them half of your rent. charge them half of the bills. if they end up spending more than £122 on leccy then show them your historical bills and charge them more than half. Don't cater for them.

Are you really paying £869 per month for a two bedroom social rent?

Nada666

Also I don't understand why the loss of single person council tax is a problem - you will only pay 50% of 100% which is lower than 100% of 75%. That is, instead of paying £264 you pay £176 each.

Similarly with contents insurance - it will not double so you will be paying less than currently.