Terms & Conditions

[ian hallett]

Hopefully I’m wrong, but this is what I’d infer from the DWP answers about in-borough changes of address:

Rent liability ends when someone moves. Consequently, entitlement would also end unless:
– liability at a new address follows immediately;
– the changes of circs rules allow us to treat entitlement as continuous.

From what the DWP are saying, it appears a change of address will always be an ‘advantageous’ change, since notifying the change of address will take entitlement from nil to the amount based on the new rent liability.

If the change of address is reported within 4 weeks, there’s no problem – entitlement would be continuous.

If the change is reported after 4 weeks, there would be no entitlement until the point at which the change is reported. Since entitlement would stop when the tenant moved, any further entitlement would depend on them submitting a new claim.

Sorry, this probably just adds to the confusion, and maybe there’s an alternative way of interpreting the DWP’s advice. It seems to me, though, that the rules haven’t been thought through in relation to this issue, and that all the options we have at the moment won’t make much sense.