I have a client who is disabled and occupies a separate bedroom to his wife because:

1. He has a specialist electronic raising bed made for his weight provided by social services which is solely for his use

2. He is attached to a breathing machine throughout the night as part of his on-going medical treatment

3. He also has open wounds that "leak" on both legs that are not always dressed as part of his medical treatment and his legs are raised through the night to prevent further medical complications

I beleive LHA rules say that he and his wife are only entitled to a 1 bedroom allowance.

This seems to totally disregard the needs of disabled people and essentially disadvantage them under the new LHA regs.

Can anyone please advise of any regs which would enable them to claim a 2 bed allowance.

I am concerned that without clarification they may be putting themselves at risk of further financial hardship if they didnt win any appeal.

Hi Sandra

This was the position under the HB Regs also. There are no regs as far as I am aware that would allow this. For HB the position was settled by the courts years ago (before the coming into force of the Human Rights Act I hasten to add).

CPAG have been looking for a test case for this for years and presume they still are, if your clients have the energy.

I would appreciate if you were able to share the advice which you might give to the customer in these circumstances.

There were certain cases that were excluded from rent officer referrals. Are they on HB now and if so for how long? When did they take the tenancy? Have they made a claim for LHA?

'I would appreciate if you were able to share the advice which you might give to the customer in these circumstances.'

1) Try and find a landlord who is charging the same level of rent for a two bedroomed property as the LHA rate for a one bedroomed property.

...or if this is unrealistic

(2) Apply for a Discretionary Housing Payment.

Does your client get the care element of Disability Living Allowance? There is an argument that if your client's disability means that he requires a bigger property, then his DLA should be used to cover the additional rent required to rent the larger property - see www.rightsnet.org.uk/pdfs/Turner_v_Barnet.pdf

They have lived in the property since 1984 and paid a small rent of £45 per week via Housing Benefit (5 years claimed).

Disabled facilities grant have paid for a specially adapted shower room and because the home is not up to standard, to do the works a complete re-wire was needed for safety reasons. So now environmental health are involved and have "encouraged the landlord" to work with them to upgrade the property to decent homes standard.

The landlord has taken a small rent he has not done any repair or maintenance work, the tenant did this. Council rents in this area are about £70 per week for similar 2 bed bungalow.

However, I am in no doubt that the landlord will need to significantly increase the rent to help cover the cost of the work that needs to be done to the property.

The alternative is that EHO serve a notice and the couple become homeless however, they wish to remain in their home which is close to family members support, particularly relevent in this rural district.

They do receive DLA and I thank you for your advice.

The rent increase will be in negotiation soon im sure, and the aim at this point is to get the property up to standard without unecessary hardship to the claimants so your advice is most helpful.

I would suggest getting some specialist housing advice. If the tenancy goes back this far it is probably a regulated tenancy and doesn't actually fall under the LHA rules at all.