Terms & Conditions

[Anonymous]

[color=indigo:c55622be0f]We have a claim from someone who had received a payment of £20k+ as a result of an attack. The customer received the money from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

We have previously used the compensation as capital and therefore the customer did not qualify, creating a considerable overpayment as this capital was not previously declared.

He has now applied for benefit again as he has repaid his overpayment and bought himself a new car.

Our initial thoughts are should we have used this compensation as capital? We understand that the capital would be disregarded if paid into a court and administered by the court. However, we are unsure if the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority would be ‘treated’ as a court.

Please could someone shed some light on this for us.

Many thanks
Nikki[/color:c55622be0f]

[petedavies]

How old was your claimant?

The Court requirement relates to under 18s – compensation payments to children can be administered by the court until they are 18.

If your claimant was over 18 then it depends on how the money was held – if it was in a trust fund you can disregard it in full, otherwise it will count as capital (Sch6(HB) – 14).

Para14A has extended this somewhat but whether it is applicable will really depend on the timing – I suspect it will not apply.

[Anonymous]

This person has been badly advised. He should have arranged for the money to be put into a trust straight away.

The CCA is not a court, it is a government body responsible for determining entitlement to compensation It can loosely be viewed in a similar way to an LA HB department in that aspect.

There are rights of appeal (more limited than those in HB) in the Criminal Injuries system and decisions of the appellate body can be challenged by JR.

[Author]

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