Specified accommodation

Does anyone know in what circumstances they can get HB in specified accommodation and Housing Element paid in their permanent property?
Tenant has had to go into specified accommodation as per terms of her bail conditions. Does intention to return make any difference to outcome of this?

This will need UC to take the view that she is temporarily absent from her regular home for up to six months, which they should do (as long as it is less than six months) - so the regular UC housing element will continue.  That’s the easy part.

HB will have to take a different view and consider that the bail address is the claimant’s normal home, thus allowing HB to be paid for it. My guess would be that you will have a harder job persuading HB this is the case.

Neither HB nor UC allows a person to be treated as occupying two homes at the same time in these circumstances.  In both benefits a person occupying a temporary bail address can only receive benefit for one home, that being the dwelling normally occupied as the home.  It is one of the cases where HB can be paid for up to 52 weeks on the home from which you are absent, but that doesn’t help you cover the cost of the bail address.

In conclusion, what you need here is for two different decision makers to take different views about where the claimant usually lives, hopefully the correct way round so it works to her maximum advantage.

Are you sure this isn’t a bail hostel with free accommodation provided by the Ministry of Justice (at least in England and Wales that’s who provides it - might be the Scottish government where you are)?  Oh - apparently there aren’t any bail hostels in Scotland, that explains it then!