Terms & Conditions

[Carol Meredith]

I just wondered if anyone has an opinion on this.
I have an appeal from a person who bought a building plot in 1995 and has been working on it ever since building his own house, doing all the work himself while living with parents. Work financed by wages when he has worked. He has recently moved into a private tenancy with a partner ane we have refused HB/CTB based on capital. The land was bought for £46,000 in 1995 and we have not got a more recent valuation. He has no income apart from partner’s JSA(C), but did pay rent in advance up to Jan 07 when he took the tenancy in July. He is not signing on as he is not available for work as he is working on his house. He is appealing against us taking the building plot into account because his intention is to live in the house he is building as soon as possible and his tenancy is only temporary. I cannot seen that a building plot can count as an intended home and in any case he has had ot well over 26 weeks.
Carol

[Anonymous]

I had a similar situation with a self-employed claimant who had purchased the land, allegedly to build a workshop on it. He claimed it was a capital asset of the business and should be disregarded. We decided that as there was nothing on the site, and it wasn’t attached to his home where he was running the business from, it should be treated as capital and we had it valued. We won the subsequent appeal

[Kevin D]

Not had time to fully check for relevance, but this CD *may* be of interest:

[b:c29192be57]CIS/8475/1995[/b:c29192be57]

http://www.osscsc.gov.uk/aspx/view.aspx?id=1586

Regards

[Carol Meredith]

Thanks Kevin, that is very useful. As he is still saying that it will be another 2 or 3 years until the property under construction is ready to move into, I intend to go along the lines that it cannot be disregarded due to the time it is taking to be ready for occupation. As it was bought in 1995, taking up to 14 years to occupy does not seem a reasonable delay.
Carol

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