Housing Benefit - Student, Dependent child, Partner with no recourse…

Hello,

I am working with a couple who are currently in temporary accommodation, and they were referred to my team, as they are in large TA arrears.

One of the couple is a student, she has recourse to public funds. She gets NHS grants, as she is ineligible for Student finance.
The other doesn’t have any recourse, but he is in paid employment.
They have a dependent child born this year.

They have applied for UC, only eligible for the single allowance, but they are overscale for this due to the combination of her NHS grants and his earnings. (I am challenging the way UC have taken into account her NHS grant, but unless her partners earning reduce, this won’t make any difference to entitlement)

HB have made a decision that they are ineligible as they do not meet the Eligible Student Groups (reg 56(2A) Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 SI 2006/213).

Is there anything within HB regs, that she should be treated as a single person (due to her partner having no-recourse) and therefore she is eligible as a Student lone parent?

The reason I think they were able to claim UC is due to UC regs 3(3) (e) ???? But I am worried, that if their income is lower, they wouldn’t be eligible to receive UC either. However, I can’t seem to find similar HB regs.

-Initially I wanted to see about getting them into UC entitlement to passport them to full HB, but if they are ineligible for HB, then I don’t want to advice them to reduce their income.
-Could look to explore other eligibilities for HB as a student. I.E could she be able to go down to part-time, but she is in her final year of study, so she probably wants to get it over with.

Just don’t really know what advice to give this couple, to be able to cover their TA costs??? Any help would be greatly appreciated.