Terms & Conditions

[lesleyb]

Have been reading all the threads regarding o/p rules from 10.4.06 and I want to make sure I have this scenario right.

Payment direct to landlord – change of address reported by claimant – target for recovery is landlord.

o/p recoverable in terms of Reg 100 (1) – there was no official error.
There is no exception to recovery as change of address – Reg 101 (1)(bb)
Recoverable from landlord 101 (2)(a)(i).

I really want to know if I have quoted the correct regulations.

Thanks – sorry to bring this up yet again!

[Anonymous]

Can you say a bit more about the sequence of events?

I am assuming payment was made 4 weeks in arrears; you say there was no official error so there must have been at least one HB payment [b:e2f33d91be]after[/b:e2f33d91be] the claimant moved, but [b:e2f33d91be]before[/b:e2f33d91be] you knew about it.

It was the claimant who eventually told you he had moved, but not before you had made that payment or payments. That’s looking like claimant error to me. If the money is going to be recoverable from the landlord, you are going to have to show that it was more the landlord’s fault than the claimant’s fault that the overpayment happened. Are you confident you can do this? Have you any reason for thinking the landlord knew the tenant had moved before the payments were made?

This is exactly the situation that is going to force a lot of councils to approach recovery in a different way from the approach they took in the past. The overpayment is recoverable from the person whose mistake caused it; the one person who definitely knew he had moved was the claimant, yet he managed to delay telling you about that for long enough to allow a payment in arrears to go out covering the period after he ahd moved.

[lesleyb]

Sorry for being a bit vague.

HRI visit was made to another claimant and she reported her partner had moved in with her – visit made 26.4.06.

His claim was cancelled and an o/p created 20.3.06 – 30.4.06. HB paid in arrears and last 4-wkly period was 3.4.06 – 30.4.06.

I suppose the claimant didn’t report it and probably wouldn’t have if we hadn’t by chance made a visit to his new partner.

However, the reason I was going to recover from the landlord was that he has a history of this sort of thing – he has written to us saying he wasn’t aware his tenant had moved until our notification letter of 26.4.06 and his tenancy ended 1.5.06 (don’t mean to sound cynical but a coincidence it’s the day after the overpayment period). He doesn’t have many properties and the full rent charge is not being met by HB – if he had been collecting the previous 4-weekly rent i.e. period ending 2.4.06 – he should have noticed his tenant wasn’t there. He is even disputing the date advised during the visit.

However, I do see your point and it would be difficult to prove the landlord knew his tenant had moved out although I suspect he did.

Just as a matter of interest – he had a previous tenant who moved out and made a claim for another address – we failed to terminate the old address and HBMS discovered two claims being paid – when we eventually cancelled the claim for his tenant he disputed recovery even though he told us he knew his tenant had left – he continued to accept payments for months after – took him to appeal and won the case.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like they are as bad as each other. But I think it is important to be careful to home in on the salient points: despite the landlord’s past conduct, will you be able to persuade a Tribunal that [b:e0ee7542eb]this[/b:e0ee7542eb] overpayment was his fault so as to satisfy the new o/p Regs? He will presumably be preparing to base his appeal on the argument that it was entirely, or at least mainly, the claimant’s fault.

[Author]

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