Support for owner-occupiers and “paid work”

Hi

Just trying to get my head around the Universal Credit Regs.  It says in Schedule 5(4) the “No housing costs element to be included for owner occupiers in paid work.

Does anyone know whether or not this is any paid work, even 1 hour at minimum wage or, is it the same definition as for the Benefit Cap under Reg 73?

If mortgage interest payments stop as soon as a person steps out of the door to work how will this incentivise a return to work?

It is ‘with any earnings’.

Not sure what you mean Gareth. There is a definition in reg 2:

“paid work” means work done for payment or in expectation of payment and does not include being engaged by a charitable or voluntary organisation, or as a volunteer, in circumstances in which the payment received by or due to be paid to the person is in respect of expenses.

An official in the DWP Policy Team for UC recently confirmed to me that if the Zero Earnings rule on mortgage interest is not changed that where a person gets involved in the Dept of Health scheme to involve service users and carers in health and social care service planning and monitoring and is paid - say £20 - to attend a once off meeting - this will count as earnings and lead to the mortgage interest being stopped for (several?) months. For this reason a number of organisations want to see payments for involvement exempted from the zero earnings rule - Write to Lord Freud now if you agree

Judy Scott