Special circumstances that reduce the value of a housing benefit

The following two factors may reduce the value of a housing benefit you provide to your employee:

Suitability of size

Your employee may have to occupy an accommodation that is larger than they need (such as a single person in a three bedroom house). To calculate the taxable housing benefit, you can reduce the value of the accommodation to equal the value of accommodation that is appropriate to your employee's needs (in this case, a one or two bedroom apartment or house).

Loss of privacy and quiet enjoyment

If the accommodation you provide to your employee contains things like equipment, public access, or storage facilities that infringe on your employee's privacy or quiet enjoyment of the accommodation, you can reduce the value of the housing benefit. The reduction has to reasonably relate to the degree of disturbance that affects your employee.

These two factors apply in the above order. If both circumstances apply to an accommodation, you should first reduce the value to equal the value of accommodation that suits your employee's needs. Then, you should apply any reduction for loss of privacy and quiet enjoyment to that reduced value.