Terms & Conditions

[Shankers]

Greetings 

Have heard from a customer who is on JSA contribution based, single, working age,  in rented accommodation. 

Our department have received an intention to claim HB on 9th October 2017.  His postcode area went on to UC on 4th October 2017 . 

He will need to claim UC Housing Cost element for Renters and will advise him to do this immediately , and mention intention sent to local suthority . 

But he is also wanting to make backdated claim for Housing Benefit before his postcode area went to UC. Anyone know how this would work?

Many thanks 

Regards

Shankers 

[jason squire]

yup.

 

I presume you want details:

 

Your client can claim HB for the backdated period (according to your assessment of good cause etc etc) If your claimant has claimed UC you will pay the HB from the b/date date to the day before the UC award date. Probably worth doing so that he avoids the waiting days.

If your client hasn't claimed UC (and if he's on JSA C he wouldn't have had to) the HB will continue till his conts run out. You'll get the migration document at that point.

This scenarios is one of many that mean that the DWP should not be telling LAs to close their gateway for HB (at lease for the time being)

[Shankers]

That's great Jason. Thank you for your help.  Yes our customer is on JSA contribution based and award started before the UC migration date for his postcode area which was 4th October. 

Regards

Shankers 

 

 

[graeme]

Hi Jason

If they weren't on JSA and maybe were working and had just gone onto SSP and had good cause for not claiming HB until after the full service go live date could they claim HB and not bother with UC at all? Is this set out in any guidance anywhere?

Thanks

Graeme

[jason squire]

Hi Graeme,

welllllllllllllll I read it as this- It is the date of claim that is backdated for HB. Therefore if the customer has demonstrated good cause you are looking at a claim that is made before the UC rollout date. If the tenant has no other changes then their HB claim continues. The LA support pack is worded slightly differently (see page 12 for details) and refers to 'exceptions' but I can't see anything that compels us to terminate the HB unless a UC claim is made.

This is only an issue for the first month so I don't know how much attention DWP bods will be paying to this anyway!

[graeme]

Hi Jason

I'd seen that flowchart on page 12 which seemed to me to demonstrate a lack of knowledge of the term "backdating" by whoever wrote it. They're suggesting that if an intention to claim or a defective claim was submitted before rollout then it would be the LA who pays the backdated benefit. But this wouldn't actually be a backdate in those circumstances.

I'd hope that your interpretation is right as it sounds reasonable, but I'd love to know for sure that it's correct. As you say it's only relevant for a month but in our LA we have different postcodes rolling out for the next 4 or 5 months as things currently stand.

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