Monday to Friday, housing costs. 

Hi. Does anyone know to what extent, someone renting a room Monday to Friday (5 nights out of 7) are eligible for housing costs in UC?

And if so, the basis for the calculation?

Thanks

Hi -  don’t think there are specific provisions for that situation but para 1 of schedule 3 to the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 provides that the claimant must be normally occupying the accomodation as their home - is that the situation here?

Assuming you get over the occupation hurdle, para 7 of Schedule 4 requires DWP to convert the charge for the accommodation to a monthly amount as best they can.  Para 7 gives some examples of how that might be done, but it does not purport to be exhaustive.

If your client stays regularly and is charged by the week, one of the para 7 examples deals with that.  If the charges are daily, but for the same five days every week, I think the best approach would be to treat that as a weekly charge.

If this was a one-off five day period of occupation then, subject to DWP accepting that it was the claimant’s home for that brief period, they might go for R/5 x 365 / 12.  But the claimant would only get any housing element at all if the five days happened to include the last day of the assessment period - otherwise this short stay slips under the UC radar altogether.