Can a 10 yr old claim HB ?

10 yr old is a British Citizen, parents have no recourse to public funds
can the child claim HB

any help urgently needed

thanks

Although the child is highly unlikely to be named as a tenant, they may be “treated as liable to pay rent” as it could be argued they have to pay rent in order to continue to live in the home because the liable person is not doing so, and they are not the former partner of the liable person and it is reasonable to treat them as liable. (CSHB/606/2005).

However, they may be told they cannot claim HB as they are probably a full-time student. The likely exceptions would be if:
- they meet the conditions of the Disability Premium
- they meet the conditions for the Severe Disability Premium

The Local Authority could also argue that their liability was only created to take advantage of the HB scheme.

It would be worth enquiring with the Local Authority if they would accept the circumstances. If not, they could always make the claim and appeal if rejected. It may also be worth speaking to the Local Authority about providing adequate financial support to the child under the Children Act 1989 to avoid damaging the welfare of the child.

Hopefully this makes sense to everyone.

thanks very much that’s appreciated

In principle the “treated as liable” route is arguable.  It doesn’t sit well with the old Nagshbandi case, which considers (very broadly speaking) whether someone who is not excluded from benefits can claim for payments that you would normally have expected to be paid by someone who is excluded (in that case a full time student).  But there are enough factual differences to distinguish Nagshbandi from the OP’s case.

However ... one big obstacle: the HB claimant will have to apply for a NINO.  There is a recent UT decision by Stewart Wright with identical facts and I cannot find it just now, but that was the problem: the child claimant who wanted to be treated as liable for a PSIC parent’s rent did not have a NINO.

Knew I’d seen it somewhere:

http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/welfare-rights/caselaw/item/child-claimant-must-satisfy-ni-number-requirement

Can child not get a NIno by applying for DLA (even if they are unlikely to be awarded I understand they get allocated a NIno in the acknowledgement of claim letter?) But having aid that still a risk of being regarded as taking advantage?

thanks very much for input all,
I was also wondering how would the parents be treated?  Would there be a non-dependent charge?

The definition of non-dependant excludes “any member of the claimant’s family”.  At first glance the claimant belongs to a family as defined in s137 of the Conts and Bens Act because the definition isn’t anchored to one person as head of the family.  But when you apply that in the HB Regs it gets awfully complicated: the aggregation rules in HB (income, applicable amount, spin-off effects of being responsible for a child) are all drafted on the assumption that there is a claimant who is not a child.  If the parents are part of the claimant’s family for the purpose of Reg 3 (definition of non-dep) how exactly does this transfer across to the aggregation provisions from Reg 20 onwards where the child is part of the same family as the people who are responsible for him but who are not the claimant and, er, I’ve got lost ... you see the problem?

I think the only workable solution is that for the purpose of Reg 3 the parents are not part of “the claimant’s” family because it is not his family in the way the HB Regs contemplate.  So yes there would be a non-dep charge

thanks very much HB Anorak - no wonder I was confused!

isn’t a prior question whether the 10 year old can enter into a tenancy?  since HB only payable if someone liable to pay rent, and if you can’t enter into a tenancy legally (because of capacity, if nothing else) you can’t be liable to pay rent.  and so on….Can’t see many landlords being happy if the legally liable person is someone under their majority who couldn’t be sued for breach of contract (paying the rent etc).

hi

if the people with no recourse are named as liable on the tenancy agreement, then I thought they were also excluded from the definition of non dependant.
reg 8 looks as treating a non liable person as if they were liable, because they liable person isnt paying the rent.. 

if the kid is a British citizen,  presumably it isn’t living with its parents as one of those would need to be a British citizen or have settled status in order for the child to get British Citizenship.
Can a British citizen ever have no recourse to public funds?
No recourse to public funds? but are they able to work?

child lives with parents who have no recourse to public funds, child was able to become British Citizen when turned 10yrs old in their own right

from .Gov website
You lived in the UK until you were 10
You can register to become a British citizen if you were born in the UK on or after 1 January 1983 and neither of your parents was a British citizen or settled at that time.
You must:
be 10 or older
and have lived in the UK until you were 10 or older
You must also normally have spent no more than 90 days outside the UK in each of the first 10 years of your life.

So the kid has bormn in Uk and never left (he’s 10 and already got UK citizenship)  Have the parents been in UK for that length of time too? if they have had leave to remain throughout that period, then I would expect that their no recourse would have ended by now.

I am just trying to understand whether the parents have had no recourse to public funds for the last 10 years?
Is it that they didnt renew visas etc? Sorry for going off topic a bit.

ClairemHodgson - 01 March 2017 10:03 AM

isn’t a prior question whether the 10 year old can enter into a tenancy?  since HB only payable if someone liable to pay rent, and if you can’t enter into a tenancy legally (because of capacity, if nothing else) you can’t be liable to pay rent.  and so on….Can’t see many landlords being happy if the legally liable person is someone under their majority who couldn’t be sued for breach of contract (paying the rent etc).

The child isn’t liable but could be treated as liable under Reg 8

sorry parents no right to reside and have exhausted all appeal rights, unsure of exact details as not my case

Presumably they have a derivative right to reside as the parent (s) of a British child in education?

Have you seen the appeals? They may pre date the child’s registration as a British citizen