Dear South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council,

When you calculate Housing Benefit for Social Housing Tenants who
are deemed to have a spare bedroom, do you take into account the
following legislation, in that tenants who have been continuously
on housing benefit since before 1996 are exempt from the under
occupancy charge?

"A tenant (or they and their partner/ former partner /child /
non-dependant who has: died, or left the property, or served a
prison sentence) has been on Housing Benefit continuously since 1st
January 1996 (with certain gaps allowed) their eligible rent should
be assessed in accordance with paragraph 4 of Schedule 3 to the
Consequential Provisions Regulations 1996. This is because Housing
Benefit Regulation 2 defines ‘eligible rent’ as follows:

“eligible rent” means, as the case may require, an eligible rent
determined in accordance with–
(a) regulations 12B (eligible rent), 12BA (eligible rent and
maximum rent(social sector), 12C (eligible rent and maximum rent)
or 12D (eligible rent and maximum rent (LHA)); or
(b) regulations 12 (rent) and 13 (restrictions on unreasonable
payments) as set out in paragraph 5 of Schedule 3 to the
Consequential Provisions Regulations in a case to which paragraph 4
of that Schedule applies;

Because the tenant meets the conditions, the correct Regulation to
be applied when assessing their eligible rent is paragraph (b) ie
regulations 12 (rent) and 13 (restrictions on unreasonable
payments) as set out in paragraph 5 of Schedule 3 to the
Consequential Provisions Regulations in a case to which paragraph 4
of that Schedule applies.

The Consequential Provisions Regulations afford protection from any
new eligible rent provision introduced since 1st January 1996 to
claimants living in ‘exempt accommodation’ but also to claimants
who have had a continuous entitlement to Housing Benefit since 1st
January 1996 (with certain gaps allowed).

AS such, a tenant who has been on HB continuously since 1996, is
entitled to this protection and is therefore excluded from the
social sector size criteria."

Yours faithfully,

John Humble