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House of Commons Library briefing on housing costs in universal credit
Housing costs in universal credit
This briefing paper explains the key differences between assistance with housing costs under the housing benefit regime and under universal credit. The paper considers evidence of the impact of claiming housing costs under universal credit to date and the government response.
Under bedroom tax bereavement protection it says: -
Death
Where a member of the household dies, resulting in under-occupation, Housing Benefit entitlement is not reduced for a period of 52 weeks. Under UC this period is reduced to 3 months.
What we are finding to be an issue is that where a tenant succeeds a tenancy on the death of the former sole tenant (usually mum or dad), there is no bereavement protection as the successor tenant needs to make a new UC claim for housing costs and as the bereavement occurred before the UC claim, protection does not apply. And the definition of household members are restricted under UC to a smaller group ...
Don’t take my word on this, but I wonder if that is correct. In HB if the deceased person WAS the claimant, then a new claim is going to have to be made by the surviving household member, and the bereavement protection would kick in on that claim.
If it were not so, the protection would be pretty useless in any case where the original claimant dies, wouldn’t it?
But I am not a huge expert in the UC Housing Costs regs, so maybe it’s true.
Unfortunately, the UC Regs are different to the HB Regs in that respect. See UC Regs r37.
Don’t take my word on this, but I wonder if that is correct. In HB if the deceased person WAS the claimant, then a new claim is going to have to be made by the surviving household member, and the bereavement protection would kick in on that claim.
If it were not so, the protection would be pretty useless in any case where the original claimant dies, wouldn’t it?
But I am not a huge expert in the UC Housing Costs regs, so maybe it’s true.
Problem is, where the successor is working age they generally cannot make a new HB claim, so they are stuck with vastly inferior UC provision which offers no protection in these circumstances