Theres probably a really simple answer but I cant find it! My Client and her husband moved from Scotland. Client claims benefit for both parties. She is disabled and therefore needs warden controlled property. No suitable family homes were available, and so client and husband both signed tenancy agreements for adjoining properties, these are bedsits and the Landlord does not allow more than one person to live in each. Each made a Housing Benefit claim. Clients was accepted, husbands has been rejected on basis that wife is claiming for both.

What options are available for client

One option may be the following, subject to three important caveats.

It is a well accepted principle in housing law that 2 non-adjoined properties can be one dwelling. See Langford Property Co Ltd v Goldrich (1949), Whitty v Scott-Russell (1950).

If your client could get the landlord to re-let to them the two bedsits under one tenancy agreement then they could claim HB for the whole of the rent on both, as a couple.

The first caveat, however is that the rent may be capped by the rent officer.

The second is that the LA may decide that the tenancy is a contrived agreement. However, given the facts as you outline them, I think that the LA would have a hard job proving this.

The third is that if the couple separate and one of them moves out then the whole of the tenancy is determined and the landlord can recover possession of both bedsits.

I think that the biggest difficulty with this is persuading the landlord to issue one tenacy agreement for both bedsits and that there is probably a much easier solution.

Regards
Paul

The Court of Appeal upheld the argument that a dwelling can invlove more than one building in R(JSA) 9/03(Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v. Miah <2003> EWCA Civ 1111)