UC - claiming benefits for 2 homes

I hope someone will be able to help me on this

UC client, in one bedroom, she has a baby and Council moved her to 2 bedrooms property. Unavoidable overlapping one month rent. DHP can’t pay for previous property. UC refuses to pay rent for 2 homes for a month.

Any successful cases??

The HB Regs allow for payment of two lots of rent during an unavoidable overlap such as this but the UC Regs don’t. So there will be no successful cases because the legislation doesn’t allow payment in these circumstances. It’s only in cases which feature disability, domestic violence or very large families that potentially two homes can be paid for.

The move is a change of circumstances which ought to have been backdated to the first date of the AP in which it occurs, so your client ought to have received the funds in her UC to meet her new, presumably higher, rental liability (and probably a small amount extra unless her move lined up exactly with her AP). She will then be left with some arrears for the old property which will become a (non-priority) debt. But the government says - tough.