Private Sector Supported Housing Council Tax Charges

I have been asked by a private landlord who is setting up a supported housing project (accommodation provision with disabled adaptations and domicilary home care service provided to tenants ) for adults with Physical and Learning disabilities to try and find the answer to their question.

As all tenants of the property (single disabled adults, own bedroom,  shared communal facilities) will be benefit claimants receiving social care funded home care services LHA will apply.

Can the council tax element of the landlord costs be passed on to each tenant in addition to the rent that is subject to LHA and be benefit eligible?

I understand that the concept of “eligible service charges” does not apply in the private rented sector regardless of the nature of the accommodation.   

Any help or advice is much appreciated.

Where the rent includes an element for Council Tax it is still subject to the LHA, the CTAX element is not paid on top of the LHA amount.

I assume the private landlord is not a charity or not for profit organisation?

Thanks for your reply -  they are just a private landlord and there will be 4 or 5 tenants.

Is it acceptable for the Council tax element be charged extra to the rent and would this then be eligible for council tax benefit in addition to the HB and LHA allowance?

All help appreciated, many thanks.

CTB is only payable where the claimant (or his/her partner) is a legitimately liable party.  The liability must be directly to the LA, not via a third party.

Where the set-up is a HMO (house of multiple occupation) with the landlord being liable, the L/L will presumably have set a rent level to take that into account.  The total charge between the tenant and the L/L is then treated as rent for HB purposes.  As Jeff Membery effectively says, there is no provision to “split” the CTAX component from the rent charge in order to obtain CTB separately.

Currently the tenants of the shared supported housing scheme are paying council tax contribution on top of their rent out of their own pocket along with utility charges etc where the bills are split.

This approach does seem to disadvantage the vulnerable client group -  if they were in a sole tenancy (as opposed to shared house) they would get C Tax benefit in addition to their 1 bedroom rent allowance under LHA - and the cost of care provided to the LA would increase as they would not be able to share carers hours. 

Is it normal for tenants in this situation to pay their council tax contribution out of their own pocket as part of the service charges which are made in addition to the rent and therefore not rebatable?

All help appreciated
many thanks
Sandra

Thank you for your reply thats really helpful in helping to assess the current approach and the need to review existing ways of charging/calculating these rents.

Do you know of any useful guidance/benchmarking data/ toolkits that can be used in private sector supported housing to help this landlord develop a fair and reasonable approach to costing their rent and service charges?