Terms & Conditions

[jmosavat1]

Clmt continues to get HB from another borough as she failed to tell them she moved out. I want to include these HB payments as unearned income when calculating HB/CTB in our borough. Anyone know of a Comms which says HB payments can be treated as income?

[Andy Thurman]

I’m fairly sure that there isn’t and will be very surprised if there is! She will surely be expected to repay this money – it may well be appropriate for you to do so on behalf of the other LA.

[Anonymous]

Peter Delamothe sometimes refers to a case where the claimant had made multiple claims in which the Commissioner decided that Income Support payments should count as income on the basis that “fraud unravels all”. If you search for that phrase you’ll see it pop up on the forums a few times but unfortunately there is no case reference cited.

However there would have to be a major fraud to go down that route. In your case I think you should simply inform the other LA of the move and they will decide whether they can recover the O/P. The HB is not income for your purposes, no different to overpaid IS/JSA>

[Anonymous]

It was R_H 1/05 (CH/2588/2003).

[i]I further direct the new tribunal that the two principal points on which the claimant must be required to satisfy them on the balance of probabilities before he can identify any amount as “properly payable” under regulation 104 are:[/i]

[i]- That he was in fact residing at the Camden property throughout the material periods so as to qualify for the benefit at all; and[/i]

[i]- That the levels of his income and capital from all sources during the same periods were below the threshold amounts to enable him to qualify even though he failed to do so as an income support claimant.[/i]

[i]In this latter context, I further direct the tribunal that it is the actual income he was managing to obtain from all sources that would have been required to be disclosed, even if he was obtaining it wrongly; and that any amounts of housing benefit he was in fact drawing from other authorities at the relevant times must be brought into the reckoning as actual income [b]except insofar as he is able to satisfy the tribunal that these amounts are fully legally recoverable, and in fact being fully recovered[/b], from him”[/i]

You could also look at the Income Support cases of Morrell and Leeves which talk about money the person is under a crystallised obligation to repay no longer counting as income.

The difficulty with these cases is whether the crystallised obligation has retrospective effect. R_H 1/05 implies that it does – you cannot take into account income the claimant did wrongly receive in the past when looking at benefit for a past period if the person has now been asked to pay it back.

[Anonymous]

You really need to talk to the other authority & the claimant and determine her move date if she has told you both different dates then tell her you know this & make her pick one, that way either the old authority needs to cancel back or you need to revise the start date. It doesn’t really seem appropriate to count as income it’s more of an administrative thing.

[jmosavat1]

Thanks Peter,

my one hasn’t been asked to pay it back.

Clmt told previous borough she moved out 30/04/10 but she moved into our borough and claimed HB from 16/03/10. As such she has only been asked to pay back HB after 30/04/10.

I am calculating entitlement from March 10. She hasn’t applied for HB on too homes with other borough

I may be going up thw wrong tree but I thought as Sched 5 doesn’t say to disregard I can count it.

The appellant has credibility issues (undisclosed partner/S/E earnings)

The appellant maintains she is single parent on etc so we made an adverse inference revising to nil (assumed income too high).

As I got my fingers burnt on one of these before a Judge I am trying to show that on what I know she wouldn’t have qualified anyway (I have evidence of partner’s income and her s/e income from another source)

At TTS before for another advers inf. the Judge made me work out how much income the appellant would need to have so as not be entitled (that was fun)

As such I wanted to include the HB payments from the other borough in calc entitlement.

[Andy Thurman]

I agree with Kate. In sorting this out, a “2 homes” payment may well be appropriate – obviously I don’t know for sure as I don’t know when notice was given etc. but this does not have to be claimed/applied for.
Regarding the LT/SE income stuff – you will need some strong evdience to go down an “adverse inference” route. You don’t say what info/evidence has been provided or how the partner/SE concerns have arisen. (The former LA may also be able to assist you in unravelling this & either allay concerns or, if your suspicions are correct, it may give you stronger evidence.

[Author]

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