Two Seperate Households but still a couple

I have scoured CPAG and it all seems a bit vague. A husband has moved a distance away for work and is paying rent in a property elsewhere. The wife is renting the family home. The rules would seem to suggest that their joint income would still count when looking at HB for the family home - but as he is privately renting a property elsewhere in the country, how could he pay two rents at once?

Do the rules make any allowance for the actual rent he pays elsewhere when looking at joint earnings? He couldnt get Housing Benefit on the room he rents as his earnings are too high. However he couldnt cover rent on the family home and the rented room at once.

The work is temporary (ie less than 52 weeks) and the split wouldnt be permanent. So how is the income treated in this situation. Any ideas would be gratefully recieved.

I think this is one of those horrible messy things and I rather think I have seen a discussion on this sort of scenario somewhere on this form in the last 6 months.

Regulation 21 of the HB regs 2006 appears to cover it (same for CTB).

In short, where a couple were previously living together and one is now living away temporarily (max 52 weeks), but the intention is to resume living together, the “away” person still counts as part of the household.  On that basis, they are still a couple for benefit purposes.

As they are a couple, all income / cap of each member of the couple is aggregated together in the normal way.  There is no provision to take into account the outgoing of the second rent.

As an aside, the “away” partner would not be entitled to HB at the away address - even if he otherwise qualified.  This is because the away partner is a already a member of a family at the original address and where there is entitlement to one member of a family, any other member of that family is expressly excluded from entitlement to the same benefit over the same period - s.134(2) of the SSCBA 1992.

[Edited:  typo]

It might be worth a DHP request (in relation to the main property, obviously). A sympathetic LA might be prepared to award DHP to offset some of the income shortfall due to the husband being forced to pay rent elsewhere.

Thanks guys, this at least makes the position clear.