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child aged 13 joint tenant.
If a child is a joint tenant with his uncle and under care of Social work until he is 21. can he be awarded 50% housing benefit.
if joint tenant was entitled to HB would he only be entitled to benefit for 50% of the rent, and, in that case, would the child be able to apply for HB for the remaining 50%.
He will be taking up joint tenancy with his uncle who is applying for legal guardianship.
Hi Steph,
If the uncle is applying for guardianship and is on benefits it would probably be sensible for the local authority to treat them as uncle 100% liable / child 0% liable for rent until the child stops being a qualifying young person for benefit purposes.
No financial loss (and a lot less hassle) if benefits are the sole income.
Mairi
i agree and there would be nothing to stop them doing that if both child and adult jointly liable for the whole amount.
there is no lower age limit for HB, so if they really insisted the child could make a claim. can’t imagine it’ll come to that in the circs though.
Thanks guys, working from home so have no access to regs.
can you help with the regulation I would use.
Would a 13 year old have legal capacity to enter into a contract?
Children who are too young to understand a contract cannot enter into a legally binding contract. This is a question of fact and relates to whether a particular child has sufficient understanding to be capable of making her/his own decisions. A competent minor can make an enforceable contract.
A minor cannot hold a legal interest in land, and therefore cannot hold a tenancy. However there are a number of ways around this. The tenancy can be granted to a third party, a ‘trustee’, and held on trust for the minor until s/he reaches the age of 18. Alternatively, if there is a person aged 18 or over who is willing to enter into a tenancy agreement with the minor, a joint tenancy can be created. The adult tenant will hold the legal estate as trustee for both joint tenants. There is no restriction on a minor being granted a license as opposed to a tenancy. There are no age restrictions on claiming HB so if the minor is legally liable for rent they can claim HB subject to the usual regulations applicable to any claimant.
It’s Regulation 10 (5) of the Housing Benefit (General) Regulations 1987
If it’s relevant, this SI sets out which under-18 care leavers are not excluded from HB:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/747/regulation/2/made
The tenancy can be granted to a third party, a ‘trustee’, and held on trust for the minor until s/he reaches the age of 18.
The OP is in Scotland, where I think it’s 16?