UC and Rent a Room

latinaid

1) If you are applying for UC and you pay rent to someone under the Rent-a-Room scheme, can you claim the cost of this? If yes, what proof is needed of how much you pay?
2) If you are applying for UC and you receive rent under the Rent-a-Room scheme, do you declare this?

calcotti

1) you would need a tenancy agreement
2) Income from lodgers is ignored for UC

pmlindyloo

1)  A lodger's agreement would be acceptable or a letter from the landlord with details of dates, rent etc. Please be aware that only the rent that is being paid would be met by the housing element of UC. So if the rent included utilities/council tax/anything else then in the agreement/letter from the landlord it would need to show the split in  the payment to show the rent separately.
2) Although income is ignored for UC purposes it also means that the lodger would not be 'allowed' a room in the calculation of the housing element.  So, for example, if you have two bedrooms, one  for yourself and one for the lodger, you would only receive the local housing allowance rate for one bed.

latinaid

Thanks for your replies, very useful.