Will owner-occupier service/maintenance charges be covered by HB or only by UC?

I'm thinking of buying my council flat so I can adapt it to make it safe for my disabilities, as the council has refused to help me for the last 12 years even after they settled a court case by admitting that it was unsafe for me. They've sent me an estimate of the service/maintenance charges for the next five years.

The charge for maintenance and services (excluding repairs and improvements) is £1,333.80/year. The service charge as a tenant is £572/year, so I'm not sure why this is nearly double for owner-occupiers, but maybe some of these charges are covered by the rent for tenants. I know that building insurance isn't eligible under UC.

The itemised repairs estimate is £231,000 over five years and my contribution would be £5,214.90. There is no estimate for non-itemised general repairs.
ibb.co/ZRpxQdPt
ibb.co/WvRCkdVG

The itemised improvements estimate is £354,000 over five years and my contribution would be £6,562.90. ibb.co/b5nnpxsL
ibb.co/kshkvmxW
ibb.co/bgVQG5dP

So the total would be £1,333.80 + £2,355.56 = £3689.36/year or £307.44/month.

Looking at the UC guidance and regulations, it appears that all these charges, other than building insurance, would be eligible under UC as the right to occupy the property depends on paying them, and they all come within Categories A-C in Schedule 1, paragraph 8 and none of them are accommodation-specific charges.

Schedule 5 paragraph 4 says that these housing costs are not payable in any period where the owner-occupier has any earned income, and paragraph 5 says they're not payable not for the first 9 months after making a claim for UC (at least I think that's what it means, but I'm not certain if that 9 month period restarts if the owner-occupier earns even £1).

At the moment, I'm still receiving HB and haven't heard anything about being migrated to UC, so my questions are:
1) will these charges be covered whilst I'm receiving HB?
2) when I'm migrated to UC, will these charges be covered straight away or will I have to be receiving UC for 9 months before they can be covered?

Thanks David.

I've looked into this further, and it seems that whilst owner-occupiers can't claim Housing Benefit per se, if they are on income-related ESA they are entitled to claim service charges from the DWP as part of their ESA claim. I haven't been able to find the regulations for that, so if you can point me to them please do, but I would hope that they are much the same as the UC regulations.

As far as I can tell, if a claimant is receiving service charges as part of their IR-ESA claim when they migrate to UC, they would continue to receive them without having to wait 9 months, whereas if they only start claiming the service charges after being migrated, they will probably have to wait 9 months even if they are also receiving CB ESA (which is true in my case) and that migrates to New Style ESA at the same time.

So it would be better for me if the exchange of contracts occurs when I am still receiving IR ESA so that I can claim the service charges before being migrated, but as you say I will probably be migrated before that happens.

Have I correctly interpreted the UC regulations as saying that all the service charges and repairs and maintenance charges that I have to pay as a condition of occupying the property under the lease will be covered, other than buildings insurance which is explicitly excluded?

I'll have to investigate further, but it doesn't make much sense if receiving CB-ESA but not IR-ESA prior to migration counts towards the UC assessment period, because you can only claim service charges as an owner-occupier if you're receiving IR-ESA.

So that would mean if you are receiving IR-ESA and service charges you stop receiving them and have to wait 9 months after migration, but if you've only been receiving CB-ESA then you don't have to wait and can claim the service charges straight away.