Payments by irregular occupiers

Unless I have missed an amendment (entirely possible), there doesn’t seem to be any provision for a renter’s housing element to cover mesne profits and use/occupation charges.

This might be because:

- they just forgot to include it, or
- mesne profits would just about be covered by “rent” and use/occ by “licence” respectively, or
- this is deliberate policy: if you are being evicted, let the landlord whistle for their money

Any insights?

Insights are not within my area of expertise.

A google search reveals.

According to the House of commons library….................

The SSAC questioned the omission of use and occupation charges and mesne profits from the definition of rent payments that the housing costs element of UC will cover:

“No specific provision is being made for mesne profits in the housing element of Universal Credit as we consider that they would be more likely to appear as rent or payments for a licence or permission to occupy. In these cases legitimate housing costs are likely to be covered under Schedule 1 of the regulations. We decided not to carry forward specific provision for mesne profits as it would not be fair for the benefit system to underwrite such arrangements.”

Well spotted.  Sooo ... it is reasonable to cover them as rent/licence payments but it’s unreasonable to cover them as well.  So my second and third options are both right!  That’s a bit muddled isn’t it.

If correct, its going to hit left in occupation cases….

And presumably if no housing cost under UC, you cant even claim DHP??

“We have just had a case where a claimant is liable to pay mesne profits. DWP have refused to pay any UC housing costs because they say that mesne profits are not covered by UC.  Do you have any advice as to what our claimant or us can do”?

To be honest I dont.

Has anyone had any more thoughts on this or aware of any caselaw etc that might help. I doubt there is any UC caselaw on this yet and I suspect by the time this gets resolved by the UT for instance the claimant will long since have been evicted. No housing costs in UC so no DHP is possible. 

In terms of “use and occupation” we advise people to use the term “permission to occupy” eg where a non-dep is left in occupation, and as far as we can tell that seems to work.