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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

UC paying only 50% housing element when tenant is a joint tenant but other tenant no longer there

JoW
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Financial inclusion manager - Wythenshawe Community Housing

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Total Posts: 343

Joined: 7 September 2012

Hello

This has come up a few times where tenant is still on a Joint tenancy with a former partner who no longer lives at the address. If there were arrears at the time one of them left we wouldn’t generally assign the tenancy to the remaining tenant. We may not even know one has left.

UC have usually accepted a letter from us saying we were informed on a given date that one of the joint tenants had moved out or they are accepting the fact that the remaining tenant gets SPD for CT or had claimed another benefit as a single person. However we have a tenant who has never told us the ex moved out so we have no record on our system that they aren’t there so we can’t confirm a date they left and UC are saying they will only accept from the current date.

Any one come across this before? Any solutions?

[ Edited: 19 Jan 2017 at 07:15 pm by JoW ]
SarahJBatty
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Money Adviser, Thirteen, Middlesbrough

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Joined: 12 July 2012

I would say the tenant needs to make a statement on her UC account / write a letter to UC stating clearly the date that the ex-partner moved out of the property and giving an indication of what address they have moved to if possible, or stating that the information is not available if it is not.  Also stating that under joint and several liability she has had sole liability for the rent from that date under the terms of her tenancy agreement.