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Single room rate applied to bedsit
My client aged over 35 lives in a bedsit, he has his own bed/sitting room with a kitchen but shares a bathroom, the tenancy is for the bed sitting room, so does not have a joint tenancy with the other occupiers of the property.
The local authority have applied the single room rate to his LHA stating that although over 35 he is living in shared accommodation. I have looked at CPAG page 323 and this suggests that the single room rate applies where you have exclusive use of one bedroom room only and share the kitchen/living room and bathroom. As my client only shares a bathroom and the rest of his accommodation is self contained should he get the one bedroom rate of LHA rather than the single room rate?
According to Reg 13D (b)(ii) HB Regs the single room rate applies to where the “the claimant….has the exclusive use of one room, a bathroom and a kitchen or facilities for cooking”
Therefore using a literal interpretation your client would have to have exclusive use of the bedroom, the kitchen and the bathroom for the single room rate to apply. Any other thoughts?..
[ Edited: 10 Aug 2012 at 12:27 pm by Domino ]Hi
I used the CPAG reference to look up the regulation for a single room rent and the decision looks questionable.
Schedule 1 Paragraph 5 Rent Officers (Housing Benefit Functions) Order 1997 SI 1997/1984 refers to a single room rent for an assured tenancy where the tenant :
has the exclusive use of one bedroom;
does not have the use of any other bedroom
shares the use of a room suitable for living in
shares the use of a toilet and bathroom_; and
shares the use of a kitchen and does not have the exclusive use of facilities
for cooking food; and
that the rent does not include any payment for board and attendance.
As you say this does not appear to apply to your case.
Many thanks
Shaun
Shaun
There seems to be a bit of confusion here. It’s an LHA case, so you’re looking at the Shared Accommodation Rate, vs One Room Self Contained. Single Room Rate refers to Rent Officer cases, and has a slightly different definition.
Shared Accommodation Rate applies to someone who does not have the exclusive use of at least two rooms, and is not self contained. This usually means they share use of a kitchen, bathroom, toilet or living room. Bedsits, by their very definition, are not self contained.
http://dwp.gov.uk/docs/sar1.pdf for more info.