Terms & Conditions

[Mark]

Many thanks to Ian and Julian for pursuing this one so well with the Adelphi. I hadn’t noticed the DWP’s implication that all changes of address within an area would be advantageous changes – but I certainly don’t agree that it is true. Peter’s analysis is far more preferable.

I would like to take (slight) issue with Peter though over when something is an advantageous change and if I remember rightly it was raised by someone else in an earlier thread. The key thing for me is not whether the rent is higher at the new address – it is whether the benefit is higher. For example:

A claimant was getting HB of £100 based on a Claim related rent of £100 and an actual rent of £120.

He moves to a new address where the actual rent is £150 – but the Claim Related Rent is £95 and the HB is also £95.

I would say that this is not an advantageous change because their HB entitlement has gone down even though their rent has gone up. Therefore, it does not matter when the change of address was notified.

Obviously, this means that Rent Allowance cases can become a bit complicated. In certain scenarios we will not know whether something is an advantageous change until the Rent Officer decision has been received. I don’t even want to think about the implications for various LA’s software.

The problem also exists for CTB. If CTB is higher at the new address than the old then this is an advantageous change. Therefore, if the change is notified late the CTB entitlement should remain unchanged until the notification happens. Therefore, you would be paying the old CTB amount to the new C/Tax account. Dammit!