the area in which I work has a number of holiday caravan parks and none are licensed as residential however we have several clients who reside there for ten months of the year(they have to move out for 2 months)because the council say that they are not licesned as residential they will not pay housing benefit.has anyone come across this before?

Not too sure what the requirement for the caravan's to be licenced is all about, can you shed some more light on this?

If the residential licence is in fact Council Tax registration, then the HB section are incorrect as entitlement to HB does not rest with (or have anything to do with), Ctax registration. If however the caravan's are registered for NNDR (Business rates), then HB will not be payable as HB can not be paid on commercial properties (be they caravan's or anything else - there are exceptions to this rule, but they are unlikely to apply - such as HB being payable for rooms in B&B's - though commercial properties - HB remains payable as they are renting a room in the property, not the property itself - I can't see people renting a room in a caravan).

What you might find useful is a CD CH/844/2002 that deals with HB being payable on House Boats. The same arguements as outlined in your post are discussed in that CD. You might find it useful. Not too sure if on Rightsnet but CD can be found on OSSCSC website at:

http://www.osscsc.gov.uk/aspx/view.aspx?id=830

Hope this helps but do post back about this residential licence malarkie as it sounds weird...

Caravan parks have to be licenced by the LA and most will have varying licence terms. To ensure that they are used for holiday purposes only they often include provisions about the caravans not being occupied all year round. The site liscence terms are often passed on to the caravan owners in their individual agreements with the site owners. Nothing to do with CT as far as I am aware.

I indirectly came across a similar case ages ago, where claimant had to move out of his caravan for 8 weeks/annum to comply with the agreement. Was turned down for HB for the rest of the year on the basis (I think) that it was not his normal/main residence. Complete twoddle IMHO as he had no other residence. During the 8 weeks away he would just go and sofa surf with his mates. At the time I advised with the benefit of the "houseboat" case but unfortunatly never got to learn the outcome.

The Council licences caravan sites as to their suitablity safety etc.It's not for council tax reasons. we dont have many that are licensed as residential if any.the problem is the council want confirmation from the site owners that the claiment lives on the site and the site owners dont want do that because they would then be in breach of their licence...

This is the old argument that as HB can only be paid on a "dwelling" and the definition of dwelling in s.137 of the SSCBA 1992 requires it to be "residential".

Therefore, it is argued that not "residential" means not a "dwelling" which means no HB.

This is not an argument that I go along with myself and we here pay HB on caravans in non-residential sites but the LA concerned certainly have a point. Worth appealing though.