Universal Credit joint claims: one award between two people

Universal Credit is assessed on a household rather than on a person. If you live with a partner you must claim jointly, and there is no way to keep two separate awards running even where only one of you is eligible. The award is built once: one standard allowance for the couple, one housing element for the home, one set of child elements, and then the elements each of you qualifies for individually, such as a health element or a carer element, added on top. The result is a single monthly payment into one account, which can be a joint account or a single account in either name. In Scotland you can ask to be paid twice a month instead of once.

DWP counts two people as a couple if they live in the same household and are married to each other, civil partners of each other, or living together as if they were married. The first two are documentary and rarely argued about. The third is a judgement about how you actually live, and it is the one that produces disputes. There is no minimum number of nights and no waiting period: if the relationship and the household are shared, the claim is joint from the point that becomes true. Sharing an address is not enough on its own, which is why lodgers, adult children and flatmates do not create a joint claim, although another adult in the home can trigger a housing deduction. If you are unsure which side of the line you are on, get advice before you claim rather than after.

You each create your own Universal Credit online account. Whoever goes first is shown a partner code, and the second person enters that code when they register, which links the two accounts into a single claim. Get that step wrong and you end up with two single claims that both fail. From creating an account you have twenty-eight days to submit the claim, after which you have to register again, and the claim starts on the date you submit it rather than the date you began filling it in. Both of you then attend an appointment and accept your own claimant commitment before the first payment is made. Each commitment is personal and reflects your own circumstances, so one of you can be looking for work full-time while the other is not required to.

A joint claim tests both of you. Earnings from either partner are tapered at 55p in the pound above the work allowance, and there is one allowance between you rather than one each. Money, savings and investments are combined: at or above £16,000.00 between you there is no entitlement, and between £6,000.00 and £16,000.00 tariff income is charged on the joint total. If one of you is not eligible, for example because of immigration status, their capital and income are still taken into account even though no standard allowance is paid for them. The standard allowance is the clearest cost of claiming as a couple: £666.97 a month where one of you is 25 or over, against £424.90 for a single person of the same age.

When a couple splits the joint claim ends. Report it in your online account as a change of circumstances, updating the living with a partner details and then your money, savings and investments, because capital that was joint is now yours alone. Each of you then needs a new single claim, and the sooner it is made the better, since Universal Credit is not normally backdated. It can be backdated by up to one month where a listed reason applies, such as a disability or an illness you have medical evidence for, but you have to ask inside your first assessment period. Expect the figures to move in both directions: the couple standard allowance is replaced by a single one, but two households now attract two awards, two work allowances, and child elements that follow whoever the children live with. Report the split promptly even if it is not final. Being paid as a couple after you have stopped being one creates an overpayment you will have to repay.