We recognise that, following separation, children may spend time with both parents.
However, having regular contact with your child, including overnight stays, does not automatically mean that you will qualify for an additional bedroom through the housing register.
We will consider your individual circumstances, including:
- where your child normally lives and has their main home.
- how often and why they stay overnight with you and the overall pattern of care between both parents.
- any formal arrangements between the parents - for example a court issued care order or a signed legal affidavit.
- relevant benefit information for you and you child(ren).
- whether a larger home would be affordable for you.
If your child's main home is with their other parent and they stay with you at weekends, during school holidays or for occasional overnight stays, you are unlikely to qualify for an additional bedroom. In most cases, we would regard this as contact with your child rather than evidence that they need to be housed as part of both households.
We appreciate that this can feel harsh, particularly where you want your child to stay overnight regularly. However, we have to distinguish between a household's housing need and the arrangements parents make for their children to spend time with them.
Where your child already has their main home and suitable sleeping accommodation with their other parent, we would not normally consider you to be overcrowded simply because you do not have a separate bedroom available for overnight contact.
A need or preference to accommodate overnight stays does not, on its own, mean that the council must provide access to a larger social home through the housing register. In practical terms, this may mean that some families living in smaller accommodation have to make different arrangements for contact, including how, when and whether regular overnight stays take place.
We recognise that this can be difficult, but contact with a child does not have to depend on the council having to ensure a separate bedroom is available for them in both parents' homes.
This approach is necessary because larger social homes are in extremely short supply. We have to make the best use of the homes available and prioritise them for households where children live as part of their main household and do not already have suitable accommodation elsewhere.
Exceptional circumstances where care is genuinely shared and an extra bedroom is required
There are circumstances where a child genuinely lives across both parents’ homes and there may be an exceptional need for suitable sleeping accommodation in both.
We will only consider exceptional cases where there is an established and unavoidable shared-care arrangement, and neither parent is able to provide the child’s care throughout the whole week.
As a result, the child genuinely needs to live between both households, including overnight, on a settled and long-term basis. These circumstances do not automatically mean that an additional bedroom will be awarded.
We will consider whether there is a genuine housing or welfare need for the child to have suitable sleeping accommodation in both homes, rather than simply a preference for the child to stay overnight with both parents.
There is no automatic 50% rule, and a court order is not essential. Equally, shared parental responsibility, regular overnight stays, an equal division of care or a child arrangements order stating that a child should spend time with both parents does not, on its own, create an entitlement to an additional bedroom.
This distinction is important - case law has established that even a shared residence order does not, by itself, require a council to provide accommodation that enables both parents to accommodate their children in accordance with that arrangement.
We will ask for evidence to establish where your child normally lives, the pattern of overnight care and why suitable sleeping accommodation is genuinely needed in both homes.
Affordability
If you are eligible for an extra bedroom, we will also consider whether a larger home would be affordable.
The benefit rules are separate from our housing allocations scheme and do not automatically provide both separated parents with financial support for an additional bedroom for the same child.
The statutory Universal Credit room-allocation rules determine bedroom entitlement for housing costs according to who forms part of the claimant's household.
This means that even where parents share care, additional help towards the rent of a larger property may not be available. We therefore need to consider whether an applicant could afford the rent before allowing them to bid for a larger home.
Bidding for a larger property
Where we agree that an additional bedroom can be considered because of a child's shared living arrangements, our current housing allocations scheme restricts the types of property you can bid for in such circumstances to flatted accommodation.