UC and capital disregard/lone parent

funkygal

Currently going through a divorce but still living with ex in jointly mortgaged home. On UC and trying to move into rental. We have two young children together and plan to do 50/50 shared care.

From my understanding, if I move into rented, the capital from the house can be disregarded for up to six months from separating. But from my research this could actually be more than 6 months. 

Premises ceased to be occupied H2220
Where a person has ceased to occupy premises as their home following estrangement from their former partner, those premises can be disregarded from the calculation of that person’s capital where
1. the person has ceased to occupy those premises within the past 6 months or
2. the person’s former partner is a lone parent and occupies the premises as their home1 .
Note: The disregard in 2. applies for as long as the conditions are satisfied and is not restricted to 6 months.

My question is:

1. Will my ex be classed as a lone parent as they will have the children 50% of the time? Meaning the capital would be disregarded for a lot longer than 6 months.
2. If so, what proof would I need to show?

I claim the Child Benefits, they will not need UC as they are on a high wage. Any help/advice would be appreciated.

Grumpy_chap

funkygal said:

Currently going through a divorce but still living with ex in jointly mortgaged home. On UC and trying to move into rental. We have two young children together and plan to do 50/50 shared care.

From my understanding, if I move into rented, the capital from the house can be disregarded for up to six months from separating. But from my research this could actually be more than 6 months. 

Premises ceased to be occupied H2220
Where a person has ceased to occupy premises as their home following estrangement from their former partner, those premises can be disregarded from the calculation of that person’s capital where
1. the person has ceased to occupy those premises within the past 6 months or
2. the person’s former partner is a lone parent and occupies the premises as their home1 .
Note: The disregard in 2. applies for as long as the conditions are satisfied and is not restricted to 6 months.

My question is:

1. Will my ex be classed as a lone parent as they will have the children 50% of the time? Meaning the capital would be disregarded for a lot longer than 6 months.
2. If so, what proof would I need to show?

I claim the Child Benefits, they will not need UC as they are on a high wage. Any help/advice would be appreciated.

You probably need to be at least consistent in how you approach individual elements.

For example, you can only claim Child Benefits for 8 weeks after the child goes to live with someone else.

Presumably, if your ex is a lone parent as you plan to claim for the value of the property to be disregarded then they logically implies the child has gone to live with someone else.

Has your financial settlement with your ex been determined?

Do you have any one giving you independent and professional advice?

huckster

There needs to some evidence of separation e.g. written agreement between separating parties, joint bank account and other financial commitments changed to sole accounts, Council Tax changed to one name, mortgage company notification. 

For a Decision Maker to apply a disregard for a long period with a review set after say 12 months, they are going to want to see documents that provide sufficient evidence.

Yamor

"Lone parent" is not actually defined in UC legislation, but a natural definition (in my opinion) would only include a parent who has the main responsibility for a child.
The fact that you claim Child Benefit does not necessarily mean that you have the main responsibility, but, in order to claim UC for a child (and also in order to be allocated a bedroom for them for housing element purposes), you do need to have the main responsibility.
As such, the best you could probably do (if you can make this out on the facts of your case) is for you to have the main responsibility for one of the children (so you'll at least get one child element, and also be entitled to 2 bedrooms for the housing element), and your ex to have the main responsibility for the other child. You could still potentially claim the Child Benefit for both children.


As an aside, on the legacy benefit system, "lone parent" was defined, and it was defined in such a way so as to be identical to the rules as to when the child was to be included on the claim...

funkygal

Grumpy_chap said:

funkygal said:

Currently going through a divorce but still living with ex in jointly mortgaged home. On UC and trying to move into rental. We have two young children together and plan to do 50/50 shared care.

From my understanding, if I move into rented, the capital from the house can be disregarded for up to six months from separating. But from my research this could actually be more than 6 months. 

Premises ceased to be occupied H2220
Where a person has ceased to occupy premises as their home following estrangement from their former partner, those premises can be disregarded from the calculation of that person’s capital where
1. the person has ceased to occupy those premises within the past 6 months or
2. the person’s former partner is a lone parent and occupies the premises as their home1 .
Note: The disregard in 2. applies for as long as the conditions are satisfied and is not restricted to 6 months.

My question is:

1. Will my ex be classed as a lone parent as they will have the children 50% of the time? Meaning the capital would be disregarded for a lot longer than 6 months.
2. If so, what proof would I need to show?

I claim the Child Benefits, they will not need UC as they are on a high wage. Any help/advice would be appreciated.

You probably need to be at least consistent in how you approach individual elements.

For example, you can only claim Child Benefits for 8 weeks after the child goes to live with someone else.

Presumably, if your ex is a lone parent as you plan to claim for the value of the property to be disregarded then they logically implies the child has gone to live with someone else.

Has your financial settlement with your ex been determined?

Do you have any one giving you independent and professional advice?

We are currently trying to sort the consent order. I've had initial advice about what I'm entitled to from the divorce and where I stand financially. 

funkygal

huckster said:

There needs to some evidence of separation e.g. written agreement between separating parties, joint bank account and other financial commitments changed to sole accounts, Council Tax changed to one name, mortgage company notification. 

For a Decision Maker to apply a disregard for a long period with a review set after say 12 months, they are going to want to see documents that provide sufficient evidence.

I'm already on UC without the housing element, living with the ex. I showed on my journal that I'm going through divorce proceedings. Evidence for what?

funkygal

Yamor said:

"Lone parent" is not actually defined in UC legislation, but a natural definition (in my opinion) would only include a parent who has the main responsibility for a child.
The fact that you claim Child Benefit does not necessarily mean that you have the main responsibility, but, in order to claim UC for a child (and also in order to be allocated a bedroom for them for housing element purposes), you do need to have the main responsibility.
As such, the best you could probably do (if you can make this out on the facts of your case) is for you to have the main responsibility for one of the children (so you'll at least get one child element, and also be entitled to 2 bedrooms for the housing element), and your ex to have the main responsibility for the other child. You could still potentially claim the Child Benefit for both children.


As an aside, on the legacy benefit system, "lone parent" was defined, and it was defined in such a way so as to be identical to the rules as to when the child was to be included on the claim...

What if we will both have equal responsibility for the children as it will be 50/50 with the child care arrangement?

Yamor

funkygal said:

Yamor said:

"Lone parent" is not actually defined in UC legislation, but a natural definition (in my opinion) would only include a parent who has the main responsibility for a child.
The fact that you claim Child Benefit does not necessarily mean that you have the main responsibility, but, in order to claim UC for a child (and also in order to be allocated a bedroom for them for housing element purposes), you do need to have the main responsibility.
As such, the best you could probably do (if you can make this out on the facts of your case) is for you to have the main responsibility for one of the children (so you'll at least get one child element, and also be entitled to 2 bedrooms for the housing element), and your ex to have the main responsibility for the other child. You could still potentially claim the Child Benefit for both children.


As an aside, on the legacy benefit system, "lone parent" was defined, and it was defined in such a way so as to be identical to the rules as to when the child was to be included on the claim...

What if we will both have equal responsibility for the children as it will be 50/50 with the child care arrangement?

As part of continuing to claim UC for the child(ren), you would (by implication) be saying that you have "main responsibility".
DWP will accept that, unless they feel it does not reflect the true arrangements between you and your ex.
See Reg. 4 of the UC Regulations here:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/376/regulation/4

So, in a 50-50 situation, you would generally be fine to say that you have main responsibility, as long as your ex is not also trying to claim UC for the child(ren), which is the situation here.

However, in your specific situation, you will be trying to convince the DWP at the same time that your ex is a lone parent, and I think they will say that that doesn't fit with saying that you have the main responsibility.

I get what you're saying that it is genuinely 50-50, but you still need to "nominate" which of you has the main responsibility in order to claim UC.

TELLIT01

funkygal said:

What if we will both have equal responsibility for the children as it will be 50/50 with the child care arrangement?

Where childcare is shared on a roughly 50/50 basis it is generally assumed that the parent in receipt of Child Benefit is the main carer.  It is extremely unlikely that a UC Decision Maker would accept that both parents are entitled to single parent disregard, assuming the children were living with the same parent.