If at least two benefit communities live together in one household, they either form a household community or residential community.
Household community
Example:
A mother with two children – one daughter (12) and one son (26) – and the son’s girlfriend (23) move into a flat together.
For the authorities, this situation means that there are two benefit communities:
- the mother with the 12-year-old child
- the son and his girlfriend
Both parties have made and had an application for benefits under Social Code II accepted.
This is an example of a household community. This means that the people are related to each other, for example. A household community is based on the idea that the people living in it share costs and benefits to a certain degree.
Residential community
Example:
A person in receipt of benefits under Social Code II moves into a room in a flat and signs a subtenancy agreement. They share a bathroom, kitchen and perhaps a communal living room with the other people living in the flat.
The authority generally refers to this as a residential community. In a residential community there are no relationships, neither familial nor marital, between the tenants. Each tenant is a benefit community in their own right.