I have a client who does not and has never lived with the tenant but is the father of 1 of her 5 children.
The property is let to her and all her 5 children on a commercial arrangement but the council have now suspended payment of housing benefit in full.
He appreciates that an element of benefit may well have to be stopped in respect of one child.However surely the council must still have a
liability in respect of the tenant and the other 4 children who are not his and who still reside at the property ?

HBR 9(1)(d) states that a clmt SHALL be treated as not being liable where:

"he is responsible, or his partner is responsible, for a child of the person to whom he is liable under the agreement;"

Note that the reference is to "a" child. Therefore, at least in my view, HB is not payable at all.

Just an observation, but the Council is not "liable" at all. Only the tenant has liability to the L/L. The LA simply administers the HB/CTB schemes.

Regards

This is under Reg 9(1)(d) of the HB Regs 2006, and unfortunately I can see no way around it. It says that the claimant shall be treated as not liable to make payments on a dwelling if they are responsible for a child of the person to whom they are liable. This is not altered by the fact that there may be other children in the claimant's household, and there is not a way to pay a reduced or apportioned amount of HB in the way you suggest.

If your client resubmitted a claim for Housing Benefit without claiming for the child of the landlord and only the other four children this would be treated or should be treated differently.
See Page 200 Welfare Rights Handbook "It only applies in situations where the child is included in your HB claim"

It is clear from the original post that the child in question DOES in fact live at with the clmt AND that the clmt is responsible for that child AND that the L/L is the father of that child. Failing to disclose the child on the claim form does not change that FACT.

Further, failing to disclose that fact would, at best, be misrepresentation; at worst, outright fraud.

I think Mark's "advice" is should be ignored. In my view, it is not only incredibly irresponsible, it is also utterly reprehensible to suggest that a relevant fact should be deliberately omitted from a claim. The potential consequences include prosecution. In extreme, even the advisor could be open to action.

In anticipation of it being argued "Well, that's what it says on page 200 of the Welfare Rights Handbook", that is palpably a question of context. On the basis of the original post, it is clear that the child MUST be included in the HB claim - the clmt does not have some kind of discretionary choice. Neither does a professional advisor.

If the tone of my post causes offence, so be it. But I certainly took offence at the suggestion that a clmt should be advised to deliberately claim benefit and fail to disclose a relevant fact.

Regards

I entirely agree with Kevin that the info' on CPAG p200 is entirely context based. It alludes to situations when the child cannot be included in the claim because, for example, the child spends his/her time between two households and it has been decided that his/her normal home is elsewhere.

And, as Kevin has said to fail to disclose the existence of the child would be, shall we say, unwise.

To be fair to Mark, I don’t think he suggested the level of misrepresentation attributed to him. The LA would already be aware of the existence of the child and he may have been simply suggesting that the claimant submit a new claim requesting the child to be excluded from the claim.

He would still be caught by reg 9 though.

Thank you very much Kevin for your intelligent response.

The previous posts seemed to have judged me without using any thought in the matter!

Yes I did find it offensive but I forgive the offender with reservation.

Mark

Thanks for this intelligent response and yes I realised that the authority would already know about the child so I was not recommending fraud and I did find the prior post very offensive and lacking in tact and care! but I can forgive without reservation.

If I had been suggesting a concealment of fact I would have advised a backdate but then that would be stupid.

It's evident that you have taken time and consideration when reading my post. Thank you for your comments.

With hindsight, I acknowledge that my post should have been less confrontational. And, given the clear statement that you were not advocating anything untoward, I apologise for inferring such. Next time, I shall wait 5/10 minutes before responding to such a post...

I sincerely hope that the factual content of the response (rather than the manner expressed) is of help in any case.

Kevin thank you for your response, I probably should have qualified my first post with the fact that I'm clearly not an expert in that area and that my "suggestion" rather than any "clear and factual statements" needed to be treated with care. When we see a child venturing towards a danger area we tend to leap in to protect them. I trust that in my straying towards dangerous areas you did the same with the intention of protecting me and the original author of the thread. I will be a little more careful with my posts next time.

Thanks Mark