Extra Bedroom

You may be entitled to any extra bedroom allowance in your Housing Benefit.

If you're disabled

You're allowed an extra bedroom if someone in your household is disabled and needs regular overnight care from a carer who doesn't live with you. This won't count as a spare bedroom. The person who's disabled needs to be either:

• the person claiming
• the partner of the person claiming
• any other adult who lives with you and gets a disability benefit

The disabled person should also get at least 1 of these benefits:

• Attendance Allowance
• the middle or higher rate care component of Disability Living Allowance
• the daily living component of Personal Independence Payment  
• Armed Forces Independence Payment

You can only get one extra bedroom for carers, even if more than 1 person in your home needs overnight care. 

You can also get an extra bedroom if you're in a couple and one of you has a disability that means you can't share a bedroom. The disabled person will need to get at least 1 of these benefits:

• the higher rate of Attendance Allowance
• the middle or higher rate care component of Disability Living Allowance
• the daily living component of Personal Independence Payment  
• an Armed Forces Independence Payment

If you're disabled and are affected by the cuts, you can apply for a Discretionary Housing Payment

If you have a disabled child

You're allowed an extra bedroom if your child is disabled and can't share a bedroom with another child because of their disability. You're also allowed an extra bedroom if your child is disabled and needs regular overnight care from a carer who doesn't live with you. You must meet the following conditions:

• your disabled child must be entitled to the middle or higher rate care component of Disability Living Allowance
• the local authority must be satisfied that your child's disability means they can't share a bedroom with another child

If your child lives with you only part of the week

If you share the care of your child with the child's other parent, your child will be treated as living with the parent who provides the child's main home. If your child spends equal amounts of time with both parents, they will be treated as living with the parent who claims Child Benefit for them. This may mean that you won't be allowed a bedroom for the child.

If you're a foster carer

If any of the following people is an approved foster carer, they will be allowed an extra bedroom. This won't count as a spare bedroom. The people are::

• the claimant
• the claimant's partner
• someone else who is a joint tenant with the claimant or the claimant's partner
• the partner of someone else who is a joint tenant with the claimant or the claimant's partner.

Only one additional bedroom is allowed for a claimant and a claimant's partner if they are both approved foster carers or kinship carers. Only one additional bedroom is allowed for a joint tenant and the joint tenant's partner if they are both approved foster carers or kinship carers.

These rules apply whether or not a child has been placed with the carer, as long as they have fostered a child or have become an approved carer in the last twelve months.

If your child is in the Armed Forces

If you have an adult son, daughter or step-child who is in the Armed Forces and who lives with you but who is serving away from home, they are treated as continuing to live at home.

As long as they intend to return home, the rules won't be applied to the bedroom that they normally occupy.

If you're a joint tenant

Everyone sharing a property is counted even if they are joint tenants. If you are a joint tenant and your property is considered too big for you, your Housing Benefit will be reduced.

For example, you're a joint council tenant with your brother and you have a three bedroom property. Your brother's child used to live with you so you had one bedroom each. However, now that his child has left home, you will be treated as having a spare bedroom.