Ex-Partner not in houshold but joint tenant - affecting UC

Hi. We have encountered this a lot! “Untidy Tenancies” as they are known can be overcome. Sadly, not all UC staff appear aware. Persist and you will prevail! We have often encouraged notes to be recorded in the tenants/claimants journal explaining that they are liable for 100% of the rent and occupy the property as a single person and that housing law does not simply allow for the tenancy to be changed! UC will ask the tenant to re confirm their housing costs and resubmit an SRS (verification for us to confirm). We have on occasions been required to submit a support letter, however this has been less common having raised it with the UC Service Innovation leads (SIL’s). Your local jobcentre should have a SIL or have contact with one at your relevant service centre. They have up skilled the case managers and call advisers for us.

Try Quting Para 2 of Sch 2 to UC Regs

Another tactic is to copy and paste UC guidance on the journal or for client to take guidance to interviews - see attached

Following Jon’s post see extract from attached guidance.

‘Untidy Tenancies
An ‘untidy tenancy’ is one in which a joint tenant(s) has left the property and is
not paying rent, if, for example, a relationship has broken down, but the landlord
is unable to remove them from the tenancy for legal reasons.
Universal Credit would normally divide the rental liability equally among joint
tenants when calculating housing costs. Universal Credit provisions can
sometimes allow a claimant to be treated as liable for rent which they do not
have a formal liability to pay. In such ‘untidy tenancy’ cases, this provision can be
used to allow the housing costs to be calculated based on the full rent, despite a
claimant having shared liability for the rent under a joint tenancy. These
circumstances occur more often in the social rented sector’.

CJ - 28 June 2018 09:25 AM

Until they can take him off the tenancy agreement UC have insisted they will not pay the full housing costs etc. as his income from when he lived in the house is still being counted.

Just to be clear: are they still counting his income as household income? Or are they only allowing half the rent as a liable cost? (or both)

The former would imply that UC haven’t accepted the change of circs of the couple separation.

Jac - 28 June 2018 10:40 AM

Try Quting Para 2 of Sch 2 to UC Regs

Seconded.

The legislation is very clear on this.

Under Sch. 2 of the Universal Credit regulations of 2013, 

Failure to pay by the person who is liable

2.— (1) A claimant is to be treated as liable to make payments where all of the conditions specified in sub-paragraph (2) are met. 

(2) These are the conditions— 

(a) the person who is liable to make the payments is not doing so;

(b) the claimant has to make the payments in order to continue occupation of the accommodation;

(c) the claimant’s circumstances are such that it would be unreasonable to expect them to make other arrangements;

(d) it is otherwise reasonable in all the circumstances to treat the claimant as liable to make the payments.

I don’t think that’s the right bit to quote.  The claimant is liable for 100% of the rent, but so is someone else: either of them individually or both of them jointly can be taken to court for rent arrears.  This is what “joint and several” liability means.  So there is no need to treat them as liable - they already are.
What you need here is para 35 of UC Schedule 4, which deals with the apportionment of rent between joint social sector tenants.  The default is to divide equally, but:

(5) If the Secretary of State is satisfied that it would be unreasonable to determine amount S in accordance with sub-paragraph (4), amount S is to be determined in such manner as the Secretary of State considers appropriate in all the circumstances, having regard (among other things) to the number of persons liable and the proportion of the relevant payments for which each of them is liable.

This is very similar wording to the equivalent HB provision and the case law on that tells us that the reasonable apportionment can be anything from 50/50 to 100/0.

I’d thought it was para.35 of sch..4 that would help as well when i looked at this earlier on.

Standing back from the intricacies of the legislation, it’s pretty damned appalling that, in a case of domestic violence, the DWP seem to be taking an approach that could be seen as forcing the client to look to contact an abusive ex-partner in order to get them to accept that she is now a single claimant, especially if the HA has already confirmed in writing that he’s left the property.

Maybe worthwhile considering either contacting the local partnership manager and/or lodging a complaint if they won’t budge?

I agree with Paul, that the Local Partner manager needs to be alerted about this DV case. I probably would take the tack that a survivor of DV should not be disadvantaged whilst the tenancy issue gets resolved and that DV is an area where the GOV is specifically aiming to do more to support survivors.  The Gov asked for additional suggestions during the last consultation which ended May.

Protect and support – to enhance the safety of victims and the support that they receive….....

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/domestic-violence-and-abuse

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/domestic-abuse-bill-consultation

Unfortunately it is really a illustration of government not being joined up…................. but a local partnership manager will most probably get this as a problem and seeking to address the problem.

Good Luck.

There seems to be a real skills gap in UC administration when it comes to housing costs and tenancy law.  Are they still insisting on people providing a whole new tenancy agreement when a 6-month shorthold expires and becomes a periodic tenancy?

What a shame that there isn’t a legion of trained benefit officers across the country who know something about tenancies and can accurately assess tenants’ housing costs….......................................................................................................

Thanks all for the advice.

It looks as if the issue may be getting resolved as the ex has verbally agreed to take his name off the property.

I will use the above advice for future cases.

andyrichards - 29 June 2018 10:07 AM

There seems to be a real skills gap in UC administration when it comes to housing costs and tenancy law.  Are they still insisting on people providing a whole new tenancy agreement when a 6-month shorthold expires and becomes a periodic tenancy?

What a shame that there isn’t a legion of trained benefit officers across the country who know something about tenancies and can accurately assess tenants’ housing costs….......................................................................................................

I think you will find that the DWP is instituting something called “Housing Confident” so that their officers are better equipped to deal with these issues. We have recently provided training locally on homelessness awareness.
You might want to think about the impact that the October 18 arrangements will have on the DWP. From October they will have a duty (HRA 2017) to refer households they believe are threatened with homelessness to a relevant housing authority.  You can envisage In some cases (eg The Case Above) the DWP will unwittingly hold the solution themselves by the correct payment of housing costs. (?)

So, a year after it was invented, apparently off-the-cuff - https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/11495/ - they are getting on with Housing Confident?

I wonder why it took so long?

NB the SoS at the time referred to it as already in place:

‘[We] have introduced a “Housing Confident” scheme to ensure that universal credit work coaches talk to claimants about housing and that work coaches are alert to the support that claimants might need. It is about properly understanding the claimant’s needs, and this can extend to providing budgeting advice or, when needed, arranging for direct payments to landlords.’

Nice to know they are finally doing something, but why is it that improvements take forever but cuts and nasty changes sail straight through??

I raised this problem with our partnership manager after we came across a case where the remaining tenant was asked to provide a letter from her landlord stating that she was solely liable for the rent (which they couldn’t do because she is jointly and severally liable) and that the other tenant had moved out (which they wouldn’t do). 

Although there was no indication of domestic abuse in this case we raised the concern that the remaining tenant was having to unsuccessfully resort to asking for proof from her ex-partner that he was no longer living there.

The email correspondence with the partnership manager is still ongoing, but so far it has merely served to justify our concerns.

The initial response to our concern that the DWP is requiring tenants to obtain an unnecessary and excessive amount of information from landlords and potentially jeopardising tenancies was that they do not specifically ask for letters, but this was followed by an example of where a tenant ‘…could obtain a supporting letter from their landlord’.

We are still waiting for a response to our concern that they are indirectly putting pressure on claimants to obtain evidence from ex-partners, which could put them at risk.

I questioned the use of the term ‘untidy tenancy’ which is unhelpful and has no legal basis and received a reply that this is ‘merely a term’.  We are currently waiting for a response via the policy team to my follow-up request that the term should be withdrawn from use, as it is value laden with negative connotations -  implying that either housing law is untidy (in comparison to universal credit?), or possibly even that a claimant’s life is untidy. 

I came across a case like this earlier in the week (all info above was very helpful - thanks) and assisted a client to request MR via online journal.
Phoned UC helpline this morning to confirm MR processed.
Case manager read through request but seemed to be immediately aware of the current guidance and amended the decision there and then over the phone.
Hopefully this means guidance has been widely circulated and other case managers will also be aware and able to quickly resolve.

I am concerned that this is an issue which can only be resolved retrospectively if the UC claim form does not ask anything that might confirm whether a joint tenant is still resident and contributing etc. (more than happy to be corrected on this but case manager I spoke to agreed that this issue wouldn’t become apparent until initial entitlement decision issued). Will be raising this locally.