UC and claiming Council Tax Benefit, confused

OnePoundNote

I want advice on Council Tax benefit whilst claiming UC please.

My question is how does claiming Council Tax Benefit affect affect UC? My local council website online application form says "If you claim Universal Credit: You can apply for Council Tax Reduction if you're on Universal Credit but the award is counted as income.If you have only just claimed Universal Credit and you have received your salary for the first month of the claim, then that amount must be counted and you may not qualify for Council Tax Reduction until the following month.

These are the Government regulations and we are unable to make changes to these."

BACKGROUND -

We have received both housing and council tax benefits via our local council for many years up until August last year when we were migrated to UC from Tax Credits, we received Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit from our local council.

Early last year I had already paid  the council tax at the benefit 'reduced rate'. Then in September last year our rent was transferred from the council to UC to continue pay it for us. We then received a revised bill for Council Tax and had to pay an additional +£1,000. because combined we had "too much money" according to UC. So I paid it and that wiped out most of those savings for emergencies.

So this week I looked up how much this years Council Tax bill will be for our property, it's a band C and the full amount is £2,055. I know we will struggle to pay this in instalments and stay on top of the other essential bills with the cost of living constantly increasing.

I sent an email to the council who said I'd have to make a brand new fresh claim. So I went onto the the council website before the bit to click for to be taken to the online application form there's a part that says "If you claim Universal Credit: You can apply for Council Tax Reduction if you're on Universal Credit but the award is counted as income.

If you have only just claimed Universal Credit and you have received your salary for the first month of the claim, then that amount must be counted and you may not qualify for Council Tax Reduction until the following month.

These are the Government regulations and we are unable to make changes to these."

I receive PIP at the higher level for both parts due to physical and mental health and have done for many years. I am in the Limited Capability For Work and Work-Related Activity Group with UC as my health affects me and prevents me from working. I no longer have to attend monthly 'interviews' at the job centre.

My husband is my carer, he receives Carers Allowance and he is also part time self employed but is not affected by the minimum income for UC purposes, although he still has to submit his income and expenditure every month to them so they can calculate the payments.

The UC pretty much pays the essential priority household bills, although if it is short then I will cover it. I have my PIP paid into a separate bank account and use it to pay for the weekly food shop and other things I require. 

I don't get out much with my health issues so my PIP often builds up as I am practically housebound, in UC view this means we have too much savings. I have told them it is there for emergencies and towards a pension (I don't have a private pension or anything so I was putting it aside into a small savings account when I had any spare money but it was all spent on last years council tax revised bill!).

As I suspect many are we are anxious about any potential cuts to benefits coming soon.


Thanks for any advice.

born_again

All I can say as far as we go, we did not claim CTB, but received a letter from the council detailing what our rate would be. 
So this can only have come via UC informing them once our UC claim started paying.

No idea if this is the same for all councils. As they can work in different ways. 🤷‍♀️

HillStreetBlues

OnePoundNote said:

I want advice on Council Tax benefit whilst claiming UC please.

My question is how does claiming Council Tax Benefit affect affect UC? My local council website online application form says "If you claim Universal Credit: You can apply for Council Tax Reduction if you're on Universal Credit but the award is counted as income.

If you have only just claimed Universal Credit and you have received your salary for the first month of the claim, then that amount must be counted and you may not qualify for Council Tax Reduction until the following month.

These are the Government regulations and we are unable to make changes to these."

Thanks for any advice.

What is meant by that, for example If you stopped working on the 1st and then claim UC on the 2nd so AP is 2nd-1st.  It's likely that would you get your final wages paid in that 1st AP. That could mean for the 1st AP you would get a zero UC award as income was too high. If that was the case then you wouldn't get any help with CT that AP. But if the next AP doesn't include any wages then you would get a UC award so then you would get help with CT.
So in your case if you claimed council tax support and wages were high in the AP claimed so little or no UC, then no council tax support, but if wages dropped then you would be entitled to it.
For working age people councils can set the own support within certain perimeters.

KxMx

Claiming help with Council Tax has no affect on your UC claim. 

UC is administered by DWP. 

CT is administered by local councils. 


Each local authority runs a different scheme for Council Tax Reduction, so it's very hard to advise on individual cases from here.

Unfortunately some areas seem to treat UC differently to legacy benefits. 

Do you have any Transitional Protection on your claim? Some areas see this as additional income because it takes awards over the normal levels of UC. Even though TP is added to ensure you aren't worse off at the time of transfer compared to your legacy benefits. 

You can make a new application for CTR and see what they come back with.
Why do you think you'll have to pay 100% of your Council Tax bill? 

I'm not sure what your comments about UC saying you have "too much money" are about.
UC are only interested in your savings if you have over £6000.

fatbelly

Definitely make a claim -unlikely you will get 100% relief but should be something

You can get an idea of what you can get from

https://benefits-calculator.turn2us.org.uk/

Also you can pay in 12 instalments on the 20th of the month, but you have to ask