How does a child's student loan impact on parents benefits?

[housinghelp101]

I've been a long time carer for ds therefore been on (legacy) benefits. This will not change as long as he is alive. Dd is due to start uni next year and I've got no idea how this will impact our household wrt benefits. I assume any maintenance loan she gets will affect my benefits as it's seemed as income? She is planning to stay at home, but cannot afford to not get the ML as she will have travel costs. Equally I cannot afford to lose money either. Does anyone have experience of this?

I am in a similar situation (disabled ds, dd about to go to university, low income) and I assumed dds money wouldn’t affect mine as she is classed as an adult and the loans etc are issued to her... I’m not sure if that’s correct now! I know I will lose her child benefit and tax credits element etc.

@Fairylea I have understood it as the maintenance loan being classed as another adult in the household having an income, so it will affect HB at the very least. I know in UC even the student loan is regarded as income, which seems really silly, however that won't affect us as we will remain on the legacy benefits for now. My rent is high but I need to stay in this house for the downstairs bathroom. I know i will lose the CB/CTC for dd but I would hate to have to ask her to leave the house because her being here will be detrimental to my HB costs.

A brief look at this tells me (if I understand it correctly) that we will lose the HB for our dd's, which I realized but also that the maintenance loan will be considered as income of another adult in the household so it will reduce our HB entitlement even further. If that is the case I would have no choice but to ask dd to leave :-(

www.solent.ac.uk/finance/documents/students-and-benefits.pdf

The good news is that CTC is paid up until the age of 20 if they are in an approved educational setting, so that might offset some of the loss.

Ctc is only paid until 20 if they are not at university - ie in further education such as A levels or apprenticeship. Once they start university it stops. Unless I have misunderstood this link -

www.gov.uk/child-tax-credit-when-child-reaches-16

That Solent link only applies where the claimant themselves is studying. It doesn't apply to you. I THINK your student dd as a non-dependent would count the same as a lodger ie not regarded as part of your claim.

You might be ok:
A non-dependant deduction doesn't apply to a full-time student during term time or during holidays if they're not working

From here:

https://england.shelter.org.uk/housingadvice/benefits/housinggbenefitdeductionsswhenlivinggwithnon-dependants

You won’t get hb for you dd so you will loose the applicable amount. However it won’t reduce your income in other ways. If UC hadn’t come in your dd as a disabled student would have been able to claim hb herself.

As above, I don't think it affects benefits per se. But it might still be considered a "change of circumstances" that would trigger a move to Universal Credit. (In which case that's pretty much unavoidable whatever DD does).

Although this says partner I think it may mean anyone in the house who is claiming the following benefits

It’s worth checking regardless as sometimes the councils don’t apply everything to your claim

I took this from shelter
No deduction is made from your housing benefit for a non-dependant if you or your partner receive:

the care component of disability living allowance (DLA)
attendance allowance
the daily living component of personal independence payment (PIP)
armed forces independence payment

Rather than asking her to leave could you not just ask her to pay you some rent? I would assume she’s getting the maximum maintenance loan so that seems perfectly sensible.

Yes Still that is what I'll have to do. I'm just very worried that the change in circumstances will shift me over to UC and the uncertainty that that will bring is rather daunting.

Can you ring tax credits and ask them. Or do a tax credit calculator?

Will your DD be able to fit a part time job around her studies? If she moves out, she will need to pay rent, so if she stays living with you it's only reasonable that she contribute towards the household rent and bills.

She won't get the maximum amount of loan living in parental home, it's a reduced rate, it always has been.

Link to applicable amount of loan she's entitled to and difference between that and living elsewhere.

www.gov.uk/student-finance/new-fulltime-students

Yes the reduced maintenance loan is an issue for dd too. She will have placement and travel from her first year that will be self funded so won't have a lot (if any) left over. She might actually be financially better off moving out. Just feeling really low about it that my financial situation means that she doesn't have the choices I would like to give her.

Apologies I'd not realised you knew it would be reduced, that wasn't clear from your OP.

I appreciate it is difficult. Can you look at the uni finance pages/assistance to see if staying would effect her ability to claim anything from that funding? I know the uni I worked at prioritised students living away from family as family were expected to help out instead (not saying that's fair, just a fact!)