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UC and bedroom tax
In spite of having talked about UC non-stop for many months, it appears to have only just pinged in my head that the child of a non-dependent is not entitled to a bedroom under the UC under-occupancy rules.
This is not uncommon that a tenant will have a non-dep who has a child.
But the non-dep has made the poor personal lifestyle choice to have a child while living under someone else’s roof. Therefore the child must be punished for the irresponsibility of it’s parent.
And yet neither the tenant nor non-dep (and child) may be able to afford to live separately because of ... (insert your own choice of massive list of welfare cuts and cost of living rises) ... and are penalised for living together.
Is this academic now the LHA rules will apply as a cap? <head explodes>
I thought any children of a renter’s non-deps would normally be included when working out the number of bedrooms [UC regs Schedule 4 para 9(2) ]
( Although all the children in the EBU are lumped together when allocating rooms…)
I hope you are right. The child can’t be in 9(1) as renter not responsible for them. Do they come under 9(2) as a non dep person who doesn’t come into any category of that list?
Not only is the child of a non dep not allowed a room for in the assessment of UC., non dep couples are allowed a room each !!
Sarah: yes, exactly
The child of a non dep is also a non-dep because s/he is not referred to in the heads of subpara para 9(2): by default, anyone who normally lives in the accommodation apart from the claimant/joint claimants and their own children is a non-dep. But 9(2) then excludes certain people from the default status of non-dep. It doesn’t exclude a non-dep’s child, therefore that child is a non-dep.
The child then goes into the para 10 size criteria mixer as a child along with the claimant’s own child(ren) (if any)
Okay thanks, I see this now. The non dep child then becomes part of the Extended Benefit Unit in terms of bedroom allocation. It is confusing because we are not used to considering a child as a non dep.
The other information I have read then is incorrect, and I am glad I asked.