Hi Mike,
My client (44) needs to get out of a situation of domestic abuse and to move into refuge.
She is a joint owner of the property where she lives now, with the perpetrator.
If she moves into refuge, will she be able to get Housing Benefit, or will her share of the property count as capital?
We have had very unclear information about this from the local council
Thanks
Nusrat
Hello Nusrat,
You cannot claim Universal Credit or Housing Benefit if you have capital worth more than £16,000.
If have between £6,000 and £16,000, you can claim, but the capital affects the amount of benefit that you get.
If you claim UC, the DWP applies the capital rules and the council’s HB department just follows what the DWP does.
If you don’t get UC, the council applies the capital rules.
Disregards
The law of both Universal Credit and Housing Benefit says that in certain circumstances your capital will be ignored, or disregarded.
The rules for the two benefits are slightly different – but as far as your client is concerned, the effect is the same*
- The value of the home that you live in is always disregarded.
- The value of a home that you used to live in is disregarded for six months after you leave it following estrangement from your former partner.
- The value of a property is disregarded if you have begun taking reasonable steps to dispose of it within the last six months. Taking reasonable steps to dispose of the property could include getting and following legal advice about getting a settlement from the former partner.
In these rules the six month limit can be extended where it is reasonable to do so in the circumstances of the case.
The Value of Half-a-House
Because of the disregards there should be no problem in your client claiming UC and/or HB, but if, for some reason the disregards did not apply, we would look at how much half-a-house is worth.
The value of a half-share in a house is arguably much less than half-the-value of the house.
Hopefully you will never need to get into such a nerdy argument with the DWP or HB department.
* The UC rules say six months. The Housing Benefit rules say 26 weeks.