My daughter lives in supported living with 5 other people. It's a typical bungalow with 6 bedrooms and a communal lounge and kitchen. They have a care provider, with 24 hour care, and a landlord.
She pays £7.50 for an ARC TV licence for her room but the communal areas are not eligible for the ARC licence according to TV Licensing. The residents have had to contribute £30 each toward the licence for the communal area but that means they are paying more than most households to watch the TV. ie a full licence plus 6 ARC licences.
Both the care provider and the housing officer say its the residents who have to pay it but everyone I speak to says their care provider pays the licence where they work.
As the residents have 24 hour care the staff also have the benefit of the TV when they're at work or supporting someone.
Does anyone have any experience of this and who should pay for the licence in the communal areas please? TIA
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Bookbaby6851
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My son lives in a house of 5 with his own bedroom with his own TV and a communal lounge with TV. He pays reduced for his bedroom TV and a 20% share of the communal full licence. I guess it depends on each individual provider what they choose to include in the rent charges.
Thank you. It does seem like that. I'm struggling to get my head round the fact that some people have to pay for it and some not. And equally, some care providers are covering the cost and some it's the landlord.
Same as your case. Area manager of supported living provider insisted they all must apply individually. And even confirmed by email. We needed provider to confirm they had sleep in support. I said I had rung TV licensing for advice but still refused to support residents with application form!
My son lives in supported living, 3 bedroom semi with one other person and 24hr support. Both have their own tenancy and because of this the 2 residents each pay for a full TV licence separately which includes their lounge tv. It's disgraceful really it's one house with 2 tenancies and all these extra costs.
Goodness, that even worse than my daughter's situation. That's definitely not right. They are entitled to an arc licence for each tenancy, so both of them would pay £7.50 each. Obviously, the communal area is still up for debate but even if they paid half each for the communal area that still a lot cheaper than 2 full licences. The information about the arc licence is on the TV Licensing site. I don't know if you can put external links in this group.
ARC Licence is only available to ppl in Supported Living which is provided by a Local Authority or a Housing Association/Not for Profit Landlord. As much of Supported Living is provided by private companies tenants are obliged to pay for full licence. I challenged the guidance with the Licensing Agency, without success. I believe it is a legacy from previous years when majority of LD services were directly provided by councils. Mencap should be lobbying government to end this discrimination .
My son has lived in a property owned by a housing association for 11 years sharing with 1 other adult. Both have paid full tv licence in all that time. The company who support them are appalling and couldn't care less, disgraceful. I've already complained to Social Services about other matters but they don't care either.
Hi I've never heard of an arc licence but will definitely check that out thankyou. I'm not impressed with this supported living lark, you might have guessed 😄 You can put external links on the site for future reference, we'll I'm presuming as I've seen them, thanks again
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