Council Tax Reduction Scheme - large family

Hi

I am working with a customer who has a large family and has had to be re-housed in two adjoining three bedroom properties.  They have applied for CTR and the local authority has treated this as two separate claims on two separate dwellings and used the same income on both claims which has resulted in no CTR on either property.  Their HB claim has been treated differently, and they have been awarded partial HB on one and full on the second property.  It seems very unfair for the income to have been counted twice. 

Is there any caselaw that would help challenge the decision?

Thanks

Seems to me that they are either one household or they aren’t.  Surely the correct way to do it (if they are taking all the household income into account for both properties) is to add together the two council tax liabilities to do “one big calculation”.  Doing two separate calculations for the liability on each dwelling using all the household income on each one seems perverse.  I’m sure it’s right headache IT systems-wise, but that’s not the claimant’s fault.

Exactly what I thought Andy

Add together the two CT liabilities and calculate from there, in the same way that they have done with the HB.

Double counting income just seems completely unfair.