Student and non-working wife Council tax benefit advice, please :-)

bluejmc2005

I have been doing loads of readig and I am sure that as from april 2004 any students with non-student p[artners, with the same tenent/owner status, are exemp and not liable. what i am having trouble finding out is if their student loan should go into the 'income' pot of the liable, non-student partner when calculating benefit

calleyw

bluejmc2005 wrote: »

I have been doing loads of readig and I am sure that as from april 2004 any students with non-student p[artners, with the same tenent/owner status, are exemp and not liable. what i am having trouble finding out is if their student loan should go into the 'income' pot of the liable, non-student partner when calculating benefit

Go and talk to your local student union. Do they not have someone who deals with benefits etc who can help.

If not try the CAB.

Yours

Calley

bluejmc2005

calleyw wrote: »

Go and talk to your local student union. Do they not have someone who deals with benefits etc who can help.

If not try the CAB.

Yours

Calley

SU could not help much tbh - and I have been trying to get in tocuh with CAB but its a nightmare! I have emailed me concerns to the council tax benefit department of my council, i will see what they say

bluejmc2005

this is all confusing me now, I seem to have shown that I am not liable for council tax, but i cant find anything anywhere to show that my student loan income should not be taken into account when they work out my wifes council tax benefit. the council are useless, just reciting that we are only entitled to 25% off as im a student which these regulations that all the sites I have listed allude to disprove.

can anyone help?

calleyw

I found this on the CAB website:

If only one adult lives in a property they will get a 25% discount on the council tax bill. When working out how many people live in a property, some people are not counted. These are called disregarded people. If everyone who lives in the property is disregarded, there will still be a council tax bill, but there will be a 50% discount. People are disregarded when they are:-

• full-time students on a qualifying course of education, including student nurses
• a spouse, civil partner or a dependant of a student who is a non British Citizen and who is not allowed under immigration rules, either to work in the UK or claim benefit

I have copied and pasted this it comes from http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/life/tax/council_tax.htm and the list is much longer but I pulled what I thought was the bits apply to students.

Also found this From April 1st 2004 students have been exempted from joint and several liability for council tax when sharing a property with other non-students.

http://www.lancs.ac.uk/studentsupport/finance/statebenefits.htm

Mentions nothing about partners and if your student loan is included but I suspect it is because it income coming in to the household.


Yours


Calley

bluejmc2005

Thank you for taking the time to do that its really appreciated. the sticking point is, even though i am disregarded - is my income? do they still have to take my student loan into account when working out my wifes benefit? seems non-sensicla to say i am disregarded and then to take into account my loan doesnt it? i have emailed the CAB and will see what they say, its scary how useless the council are I remeber all the aggro we had just to get them to even consider us for housing benefit when we first claimed.

Agent_C

Sorry to resurrect this thread but I wondered if anyone had found a resolution to this. I have just given up work to become a student and have amassed some savings to enable me to do this. I live with my partner and he'll be able to apply for the 25% single person reduction, as I don't count for council tax purposes. Unfortunately (and with impeccable timing!) he's just found out that he's going to be made redundant. The question is, will he be able to apply for council tax benefit while he's unemployed (he doesn't have any savings over £6000) or will my savings be taken into account, even though I don't count for council tax purposes?

bluejmc2005

your savings will be taken into account, as will a percentage (large percentage!) of any loans/grants - least its been that way for me for 4 years! totally unfair as i have student friends with many thousands in the bank paying nothing.

Agent_C

Ouch! Does seem totally unfair - I don't get any grants or loan, so have no income at all, just the savings that it's taken me 10 years to accumulate. If I was living alone then I'd pay no council tax; if my partner was living alone then he'd get full council tax benefit when he's been made redundant, so seems a bit unfair that we won't qualify for anything...

bluejmc2005

its totally unfair, I went to my MP who acknowledged the problem but was powerless to change it