Council Tax benefit claim where lead is exempt

Hello!

I have a client who shares her rented home with her son who is SMI and therefore exempt for council tax purpose. He is lead tenant so my client who works does not have to pay a non dep deduction for her share of the rent as her son claims DLA care.

The housing benefit claim covers full rent but it doesn’t cover any council tax.

I have been told my client should claim council tax benefit in her own name as she is not covered by the lead tenants claim because he is SMI and exempt and she will get a 25% discount.

This has been the case for several years.

Can anyone shed any light on the actual rule in this case?

Thanks in advance

Yasmin
Manchester Council

hbinfopb - 02 November 2011 08:40 AM

In this situation the SMI tenant is liable for Council Tax, but with a 25% discount because there is only one “visible” resident (his non-dep mother).  As he qualifies for 100% HB, it is safe to assume that he will also qualify for 100% CTB on the residual 75% liability as the same means-test applies to both benefits - and for the same reason as there is no HB non-dep deduction, there won’t be a CTB one either.

You say this has been going on for years.  There may well be a way of getting CTB arrears or equivalent compensation:

- Any decisions the Council has made to refuse CTB claims by him during that time should be revised on the official error ground.
- If he has used dual purpose HB/CTB claim forms and has not expressly opted out of claiming CTB, but has never been given a decision on CTB, there are outstanding claims that can be decided now.
- If there is no way of revising or deciding CTB claims over the years and the Council is in some way at fault for allowing this state of affairs to carry on, a complaint should elicit an appropriate amount of compensation.  If he has a learning disability and a CCA the Council as a corporate body has some responsibility for looking after his general welfare and should act in a joined up way to ensure that things like this don’t happen - a complaint ought to succeed I think.

Yeah - this makes sense of what was starting to totally confuse me. I had initally advised they were recieve too much benefit and was working out a way of sorting this out but it just didn’t add up.

Many thanks for this email - I can continue in confidence now.