Terms & Conditions

[arenton]

Hello all,

I wonder if anyone can clarify a couple of points about the new Change of Circs regs from April 06?

1) The rules for hostel dwellers- i am not sure that i understand the example given in para 16 (example 7).

It says “claimant moves to a new hostel on SATURDAY 10th June, and makes a claim for HB on Monday 12 June. Under existing provisions of reg 65(1) HB would not be payable until 19 June. Under the revised provisions HB will be awarded from 10 June”

I’m not really getting this- why can the HB start on the Saturday? -(as the claim made on the Monday is not in the same benefit week as the start date of his liability?) Are they treating the Monday claim as “ON THE MAT”, and therefore made on the sat/sun etc in the previous benefit week? Or am i missing something vitally important?

2) The new rules on Multiple changes- Am i correct in my thinking on the following? Claimant is getting both HB and CTB and has a change in their Income and a change in their rent in the same week. As only the income change affects CTB- the income change for CTB will be effective from the monday following? But for HB because it is affected by both changes- they both take effect from the date of the rent change.

So the effective date of the income change for CTB, will be different than the effective date of the income change for HB?? Is that correct??

i’m getting myself right confused here…………any guidance would be much appreciated.

[Anonymous]

In respect to the hostel dwellers, my understanding (in a nutshell) is that essentially it doesn’t mater when the claim is now made, we pay from the date of occupation.

In your second example, yes, you would have different effective dates in HB and CTB – they are two separate benefits.

[Anonymous]

Just to add on the second point – it has always been that way.

The only change to the “same week” rule from April 06 is that, for the avoidance of doubt, two new kinds of change are separately sepcified: change of address, and expiry of a two homes overlap. Because the Regs weren’t very clear about these in the past, some councils treated tham as a subset of rent changing (which meant that they exerted the magnetic pull on other changes and dragged them back into the same week), while other councils treated them as a general “other” change in the next Monday bucket. The clarification in the Regs ensures that change of address and expiry of a two homes overlap are treated in the same way as rent, and they override the effective date of “other” changes occurring in the same week.

But the problem of two separate dates for HB and CTB where you have a single change for one benefit and two changes for the other benefit – that has always been there and Councils should be applying two different dates right now, before the April changes take effect.

[arenton]

Thank you all for your help.

Cheers

[Author]

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