Yet another question. Our 18 year old son wishes to stay in the States while I wish to accompany my husband to Osan. Will we still get BAH to keep the stateside apartment for him? I realize we wouldn't be able to get OHA too but my husband and I could pay for our off-base apartment in Korea ourselves, especially considering you get to keep the leftover BAH but not the leftover OHA. Would that compromise my husband's chances of being approved for off-base housing? What about the utilities allowance and COLA?

C

https://secureapp2.hqda.pentagon.mil...em/ocform.html

You can look up how much COLA you will get here. It's based on rank and years of service. Just remember that if you are here NCS the dependants will be 0. I'm pretty sure you can find on the same website how much you get in utilities. I can't remember exactly, it's something like $640 or $670 dollars, or somthing close to that. You can also look up on the same website how much you will get in OHA here and with that one it is at the dependant rate unlike COLA.

I'm just talking about my personal opinion here, because I have idea but I always thought that BAH followed the spouse, I don't think it has anything to do with the children. Rent here is very expensive. Even if you can keep the BAH and just pay out of pocket for the rent here, unless you live in a very expensive part of the US, you may be better off paying the rent in the US yourself and getting the OHA for here.

I'm not sure how not getting OHA would effect your husband living off base. You do realize that once you are here they have to give you OHA whether or not your husband is approved to live off base? That doesn't mean he'll automatically get approval to live with you but at least you'll have a place to live that is paid for.

Hi, C/Violet!

Before you make any decisions about what BAH/OHA, I would *HIGHLY* recommend you getting in touch with the housing office here at Osan, as well as the finance office and ask them about it.

I honestly can't answer your question with 100% certainty.. our 19 year old stayed back in the states for his freshman year of college, but he lives in the dorms at his college so his room and board are all taken care of...

My gut instinct, however, is that you could be opening a -huge- can of worms, and one that I'm not sure I'd be willing to risk opening. Right now, due to *several* instances of BAH fraud, the military is looking very scrutinizingly at claims for BAH.. if you're not living at that residence, you may be opening yourself up for legal problems, especially if BAH is considered to be payable to the home of the primary dependant..which would be you.

Another problem/flag that might arise is the fact that all off-base housing has to be approved/inspected by the housing office here... if there's paperwork saying you're here, but you're collecting BAH for another area, it could potentially cause some problems in that area.

Also, without the OHA, you're not going to get the utility allowance or COLA, save for what your husband would be getting by himself... so you're looking at a substantial loss of money for you and your husband as well.

I definitely wouldn't consider what you're talking about without getting some expert advice... and in the meantime, maybe try to come up with some alternate sort of financing for your son's apartment, just in case.

Dee