Hi... woman and three kids have applied to us as homeless under 1996 Housing Act part vii... fleeing violence from her partner...we have a legal duty to accommodate them. She was the joint owner of the property, she refused to go to court to get an ouster order to get him out of the property and also refused to force him to sell the property... because of the fear of future violence... this would have been OK under HB rules and she could have claimed HB on another tenancy because she could not return to the one she owned... However what she has done is transfer her half of the property over to him with no finantial gain (he still lives there). HB have decided that this is a deliberate deprivation of capital !!! We are now in a position where we must house her and the children, but no landlord will accept her because she cannot pay the rent !!... Need regulations or case law to get the decision over turned... help please... Nick Nicolson, Homelessness Unit Southampton

See my post in the income support forum about 20 minutes ago, thread about deprivation of capital.

The important question is not whether she's deprived herself of capital, but whether she's done so for the purpose of securing entitlement to benefit. If her purpose was simply to free herself from an abusive partner, with no thought of any possible effect on her benefit entitlement, then she shouldn't be fixed with notional capital.

It's also challengable whether she has actually deprived herself of capital. The capital would have to be her equity in the property and before she could deprive herself of it she would have to have been able to "reasonably" realise the equity. I.e. turn it into cash. Its not at all clear from these circumstances that she could have reasonably done so. If she could not have converted her equity - then the capital value is nil.

See R(JSA)1/02 and R(IS)1/03

In R(JSA)1/02 the value of the deemded share of the proerty was held to be effectively worthless and in R(IS)1/03 it was held that the potential right to obtain a property adjusment order under the matrimonial causes act is not a cpaital asset

In deprivation cases the burden of proof is on the LA. I dont think they can carry it if they dont even know the value of the capital that the claimant allegedly deprived herself of, let alone the significant operative purpose in doing so