Terms & Conditions

[jane]

Could someone please tell me whether a LA needs to make a decison on a request for backdated benefit.

I have a case where a tenant has been evicted for rent arrears (Dec 05), but have found that she requested backdated benefit in April 05 and a decision was never made. The tenant is now homeless and cannot be contacted, but the relevant LA will rehouse her if her arrears are cleared – and she turns up.

The HB claim was determined from the Monday following receipt, but as the tenant failed to respond to a request for information, the backdate was never considered.

If a decison HAD been made, at the time a refusal would probably have been reasonable without the required information, but the information is now available and it appears to me that good cause has been shown.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Yes, you still need to make a decision on this.

[markp]

I think you must make a decision as the claimant did make a request for backdating which is still technically outstanding and to which the claimant can expect a response. However as you can’t contact her then I don’t know how you’d notify her of the decision, although it would seem that your Housing staff know where she is and so perhaps they would give you her forwarding contact address, or give her the decision at an interview since your post suggests that they are in contact with her.

Do I know what I'm doing? The jury's out on that........................

[Andy Thurman]

Yep – decision must be made & should be based on all info available now so, from what’s been detailed, award the backdate. Only possible loser is the new claim PI, but as it appears the claim was assessed – just not with respect to the backdated period – you can probably justify suppressing stats!

[Anonymous]

You would [i:64d3079e3d]have[/i:64d3079e3d] to suppress the stats. You would have generated one stat when the claim was originally assessed, and you can’t have two new claim stats for the same claim, can you?

[Andy Thurman]

Essentially Andy, I agree – covering the bases with my response as, from original post, the claim for the backdated period could have been part of initial claim (one claim, one decision) or submitted entirely separately. 😉

[Author]

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