Forced to claim as a couple (Partner is student)

11krage

When your partner provides UC with evidence of her student loan, make sure she finds and provides the breakdown of the maintenance loan. This will be available to her, even if she's lost it and needs to request it again.

It can be like pulling teeth requesting claimants bring this in and they often only provide the page showing the overall figure. However there are sometimes amounts shown in the breakdown they can deduct from the total amount, reducing the overall figure.

After they've worked out from this the total figure to take into account, they'll then calculate the length of the academic year in assessment periods. Often 9 or 10 months depending on the course.

Another note to add is if your partner didn't take out the maximum student income they could have, they are obligated to inform UC of this. This is due to benefits not supposed to be used to look after students. Only those students who after taking the maximum loan still qualify for UC. UC would then take into account the figure of the maxium possible loan they could've had (minusing anything they can deduct after seeing the breakdown).

So now we have a monthly figure (total to take into account divided over the number of assessment periods the academic year would span). 110 pounds is then deducted from this monthly figure. This reduced amount is the end monthly figure UC would deduct over the academic year.

If this is an undergraduate course and so has summer holidays, the deduction should stop after the end date used in the calculation. And start again with the student income calculation your partner would provide previous to the following academic year.