Errors in housing costs assessments joint tenants and non dependants

I work for 2 of the theatrical/ actors charities and we are processing a lot of applications due to covid. A trend that I am noticing is that UC are regularly making mistakes on housing costs probably due to misunderstandings when applications are made. We see a lot of young people who are house sharing. UC are rightly splitting the rent between the joint tenants but are then making non dependant deductions for the joint tenants as well- presumably because the claimant has put them as people who live in the property. The claimant has no idea that there is anything wrong until we check their benefits when they apply to the charities Emergency Fund. There has been no problem getting the money back when the mistake has been pointed out but I am worried that there will be other people this is happening to who are not getting advice. Any suggestions as to how to raise this and who to raise it with to get it looked at.  Thanks, Sue

Hi Sue - I can send the issue up to DWP via the stakeholder forum to see if a change that needs making in the system. I’ll let you know if I hear anything back…

I recall that this issue has been raised in discussions before. It may come back to a need for clear guidance during the claim process about how the relevant claim information should be completed. I don’t know what claimants actually see. I suspect there is confusion between for sharing a house with someone and living with someone which has a different meaning for benefits purposes.

Daphne - 24 February 2021 01:00 PM

Hi Sue - I can send the issue up to DWP via the stakeholder forum to see if a change that needs making in the system. I’ll let you know if I hear anything back…

We have seen similar problems with joint-tenants who are related such as mother and daughter (often with other non-dependent family members also living at the property). UC split the rent but also include a NDD for the joint tenant as well as the other ND’s. Or, treat the younger joint tenant as a ND because they are offspring / sibling = ND (in one case specifically advised by UC couldn’t claim housing costs as living with parent despite being a joint tenant).

Looks like it is (another) system problem -  generated by asking for all other residents but not being able to match this info. against with their individual status within the property and/or against x-reference info. generated by the system because the other joint-tenant is also on UC (the other claimant is already getting HC’s so you must be a ND?)?

Also applying the wrong LHA (shared room rate) to share(s) of HCs.