2 child limit CTC twins etc

My client has 4 children one age 3—-2 twins age 6 one age 17, she gets ctc for 3 children as the twins count as one child ,

the 17 year old drops off ctc now so my client assumed she would still get ctc for 3 children as the youngest one would take the place of teh 17 year old as in UC when one child drops off the system due to age another younger child comes onto the system to replace them
however HMRC are saying NO, only the twins can count for ctc, the youngest one does not count ,  Q , is this correct please ?????

Yes it is unfortunately.

The only situation where this wouldn’t be the case is where the earlier child(ren) were adopted or being cared for through a non-parental caring arrangement.

There was a recent UT case where an earlier child was born through rape, but the government won that one (although there may still be a JR on this). I think, however, that twins is even less likely to be successful than where an earlier child was born through rape.

Thanks Charles, it just seemed that as twins count as one child , that there is room for another child on the system, is it worth a challenge or are ew stuck with it do you think, I know the twins being only one is a bit of a simplification but !!!!
from Gov.uk site
Multiple births
You can get extra Universal Credit for your third and subsequent children if they are born as part of a multiple birth, apart from one child in that birth. This means the exception applies to the additional children in that birth.

For example, if you’re already getting additional amounts of Universal Credit for 2 existing children, then you have twins, we’ll pay an extra additional child amount of Universal Credit for one of those twins (meaning that in total you’ll be entitled to an amount for 3 out of your 4 children).

Where the first child of the multiple birth is either the first or second child in the household, we’ll pay a child amount for all the children born as part of the multiple birth.

“Twins count as one child” isn’t an accurate way to think about it. You line up the kids from oldest to youngest - the first two get paid and the rest only if an exception applies. In the initial instance, the multiple birth exception applies to the second twin but when everyone moves up in the line, that ceases to be relevant.

The theory of it, agree with it or not, is that your client could have anticipated that further children would not result in additional payments when they decided to have their fourth child, but the same wouldn’t have been true when the twins were born as they would only have anticipated one birth.

Elliot Kent - 11 August 2023 01:27 PM

“Twins count as one child” isn’t an accurate way to think about it. You line up the kids from oldest to youngest - the first two get paid and the rest only if an exception applies. In the initial instance, the multiple birth exception applies to the second twin but when everyone moves up in the line, that ceases to be relevant.

For completeness, add after “line up the kids” , “born after 5th April 2017”.

thanks Gareth and Elliot, yes that makes sense, so the multiple birth rule is their to protect the claimant from unforeseen circumstances, but as you say after that if they continue to have more children they should expect to be hit by the 2 child max.

I think its because teh client ha been paid for 3 children due to teh multiple births policy discounting one of teh twins but now the eldest has left school she is down to only getting ctc for 2 which seemed unfair to her