Housing Benefit and School Leavers

sue311

Hi all,
My son is 16 and leaves school soon, he plans to go on to sixth form and eventually to university but he wants to get a part time job and save all the money that he earns and put it towards his uni fund to help to ease the burden of everthing that he has got to buy.
The problem is this, we are on full Housing/Council Tax Benefit due to a low income.
Does anyone know if his income would be taken into consideration on our claim and if we would loose any of our benefit because he will be earning.
Thanx

seven-day-weekend

I believe this link gives the information you require.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/On_a_low_income/DG_10018923

Oldernotwiser

Any income your son earns will not affect your benefits in any way, neither will it affect his eligibility for EMA, which is solely based on your income.

euros72

although not on full housing benefit. My daughter wants a job to put money aside for future education while she waits to start college but i fear we will lose a lot of the housing benefit.
I cant see anything specific on the gov site. Also how does it affect tax credits? Anyone know?

euros72

Can i just ask how you know this. Ive been searching hours on the net to find this info and have found nothing to suggest this.
It seems non dependents are mentioned but dependents are not. The housing benefit forms also do ask for the dependents income too

healy

I can confirm that oldernotwiser is correct but I dont have a link that specifically states this. The question has been asked before and the same answer given.

mjwatts59

Sorry to be technical, but you did ask! Regulation 25 of the Housing Benefit regulations (2006) states:"The income and capital of a child or young person shall not be treated as the income and capital of the claimant."Reg 15 of the Council Tax Benefit regs states the same. A child or young person is basically anyone for whom Child Benefit is still being paid.Any Housing Benefit form asking about the income of a child is out of date. The rules changed 4-5 years ago. Before that the income of a child was taken into account. Any council still asking for this info is at best in need of updating their forms and at worst, I would stick my neck out and say gathering and storing information they have no right to!The DWP's guidance to Local Authorities re Housing Ben and Council Tax Ben can be found in:http://www.dwp.gov.uk/hbctb/circulars/2004/a32-2004.pdfparagraphs 12-13

mum2one

Thank you x

euros72

Unfortunately the link doesnt appear to be working. Ive checked my local housing benefit form and it does still ask for income from the child. Has the local housing allowance meant there are any changes?
I find it extremely frustrating that this information isnt easily available

mjwatts59

sorry, my fault for typing text after the link:Paragraphs 12-13 are as follows, in case the amended link still does not work:"Dependant’s income and capital12 Currently, the income and capital of a child or young person, eg a child’s ownsavings or part-time earnings, may affect the HB/CTB entitlement of a working age claimant.13 From 4 April 2005, regulations are amended such that any income or capital of achild or young person, irrespective of the amount, is ignored when calculating HB/CTB for working age claimants (dependant’s income and capital are alreadydisregarded when calculating HB/CTB for pensioners.)"There have not been any changes to these regs since the introduction of LHA. The disregard of dependant's income was introduced as part of the government's target to cut child poverty, so is unlikely to change in the medium term at least.
If link still doesn't work, either pm me or enter A32/2004 into "a good search engine" and it should find it for you.Amended link:http://www.dwp.gov.uk/hbctb/circulars/2004/a32-2004.pdf

euros72

Thanks mjwatts. Im amazed you managed to find any info on this. Im assuming i dont have to tell them anything then.
Does anyone know if the same applies to tax credits?