Hope someone can help as students are not my strongest subject.
Have a tenant who is a student her certificate for Council Tax states that she does 21hours and she is therefore exempt. She actually does less than 16hours and the rest of the time is study at home. LA has said that she is not eligible for HB but her welfare officer at college has told her that she should be. She also works 16hours a week. Does anyone think that she should be getting HB?

Tue 20-Nov-07 09:00 AM by jmembery

A full time student is one that attends a full time course of study.
The simplest guide is often whether the student receives a student loan, if they do then they are almost certainly a full time student and therefore not eligible for HB.

Whilst it is true to say that many full time students cannot obtain housing benefit, that isn't the case for everyone. Disabled students can receive HB, so for example, someone who qualifies for a disability premium or who has been incapable of work for 28 weeks could qualify.

Skill: National Bureau for Students with Disabilities can provide further information if this is the case. Click this link for their website.

Sorry, yes I should have mentioned that some full time students can still get HB.
The link below will take you to the DWP guidence manual pages for this.

Jeff

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/housingbenefit/manuals/hbgm/parts/ptc_02b.asp#c_230a

Most 'full-time' students spend less than 16 hours per week in actual seminars or tutorials. The remainder of the hours are made up of 'guided learning' which I understand to be things like supervised study in a library.

As a previous poster pointed out, whether the college / university consider the course to be full-time or not is normally the most persuasive evidence available. It's also based upon the amount of time that is normally expected of a student on the course, not the time the individual claimant devotes to his/her studies...