Who should pay the council tax?

We actually don't know what would make it 'fair'. The only information we have is that currently, person A has £2000 after tax, spends £1500 on bills, but will only be paying £700 when they move in to Person B's house.

All we know from Person B is that they get UC including LCWRA, rent, and a disabled child amount, plus £120 per month maintenance. Their benefits will reduce by £800 per month, plus there will be a £190 council tax bill.

So person A will gain £800 by moving in to person B's house and will have £1300 per month. But person B could be getting a lot more than Person A in the first place.

Legally the bill will be in both names. Morally of course the person with more income should pay more. But if a couple I would expect income to be pooled and shared accordingly

A person reliant on benefits and a person working should not live together unless they are going to put everything in one pot. Benefits are worked out as if it is one pot, so trying to have separate finances in a situation like this is a recipe for disaster

This.

Unless this is literally the only financial problem left to solve.

If how you divvy up the costs isn't something you can easily agree on, you shouldn't be living together anyway.

These people need to maintain separate residences. One will lose money and resent the other partner. One will feel like they don’t want to “subsidise” their partner’s financial loss, caused by the very fact that they’ve moved in.

This has disaster/resentment written all over it.

Is B sure they want A to move in if they are going to be worse off?

Split the bills presumably if a joint household?

Neither person A, nor person B should be significantly disadvantaged by person A moving in, nor should either party be significantly better off than the other party.

Person A's costs would decrease from £1,700 to £800 based on your opening post while person B's income would decrease by £800 and there is an additional £190 of council tax that needs to be paid.

At a minimum, person A should contribute £990 - is the loss in B's benefits and the council tax so that B does not have less money but arguably, B should also share the benefit with them and leave both parties with equal disposable income after the change in circumstances.

To make this entirely 'equal'.. person A should pay £1,345 to person B, leaving both person A and person B £355 better off.

Person A, is only able to make these savings, because of person B, so should not keep all of these savings themselves.

Person B presumably factored in the fact that council tax would need to be paid, when they invited A to move in? Was this not discussed?

I wouldn’t expect A to cover the entire amount. I also wouldn’t expect A to pool finances.

In terms of calculating the relative incomes of A and B for the purpose of deciding who pays what proportion of shared bill, non-means tested disability benefits (PIP and DLA) and child maintenance should be excluded. Disability benefits should be available to pay for additional costs relating to disability and child maintenance should account for the additional costs of caring for the child. The only ‘income’ that B has is UC which will be means-tested according to the income of A as a joint claim.

It may be practical to add CM to UC as income available to B to meet general household needs for themselves and their child. Then all household bills including CT are split according to the division of income between A and B. It would only be 50:50 if both A and B had the same income once disability benefits were excluded. What is the combined UC (joint claim) and CM income per month?

A would likely end up paying a greater proportion of joint expenses which would compensate for B’s loss of benefit rather than saving money due to absorbing disability benefits into general housing cost. This is fair to both of you (and your child) and makes sure that disability benefits are ringfenced for the disabled rather than benefitting the non-disabled.

I made the mistake of allowing my son’s disability benefits be absorbed into general income (controlled by ex) as I recognised that general indirect costs were higher due to disability but this just meant that all money had been spent when additional costs directly related to disability arose.

Legally the homeowner

Guessing rent 800/1000 and remanded bill

council tax and gas and e for me are over £300 a month

add in water WiFi phone tv license etc soon adds up

Say it louder for the people at the back!!

please don’t move in together.

The post states “person B earns 2K a month after tax” and as person B doesn’t work this must mean benefits.

All the bills should be proportionate to income.

If A & B cannot have a grown up conversation about who pays what, you are not ready to move into together.

Is this a partner? because if so, I think the core problem here is that him moving in doesn't seem to be equally benefiting you. I don't think it's relevant how exactly bills are split. But I do think that both partners should see similar financial benefits - in absolute terms or as a percentage (to be decided by each couple). So if Person A is saving loads and Person B is worse off financially, why on earth would person B agre to person A moving in?

They do need to, as I said in my post, but as we know from posts on here, lots of people don't do that. But as I also said in my post Person B (likely to be the female since he/she gets maintenance for the disabled child who lives with them) shouldn't be WORSE off

Person A should not be paying the whole council tax.

They need to work out incomes and outgoings and xome to a fair arrangement.

Your benefits exist to support you in thebsituation you find yourself in. You aren't losing £800, you just dont need it anymore because now the person moving in with you is paying a chunk of your existing outgoings.

This is a good point, person B is only actually down £100. I'd say split the council tax.

100% obviously person A should pay. But more than that, I suggest not moving in together if already arguing about finances.

Another good option.

@Cavapoo123 If Person B is going to be £800 per month less well off and Person A will be paying 700 towards expenses to Person B, that leaves Person B £100 less well off. So - on the one hand and at a minimum, Person A should be paying a contribution of £800 to Person B PLUS the council Tax, since that expense ONLY arises because Person A is living in the house. Person B than can still continue to pay all the bills etc, as they do at present. Person B will be no worse off while person A would still be paying several hundred pounds less per month then when living on their own, so they are still making savings.

That is NOT the fairest way to do this, as others have said, and ideally it would be organised so that both people pay a pro-rata amount towards the bills and both people have some money left over, but if that is too difficult to work out given that Person B has a disabled child, then at the very least Person B should not be accepting anything less than what I outlined above -and if Person A objects to this, Person B should refuse to let Person A move in

Or just not live together?