Terms & Conditions

[Anonymous]

Can anyone please help with this scenario? Couple living together, Mrs is the claimant and cares full time for Mr. Mrs goes on “holiday” to Turkey in November 2005 but never returns, Mr has severe learning difficulties and believed that his wife would be coming home and that all the stories she had told him about losing her passport and being ill etc were true. She has not returned. As Mrs was in receipt of I/S, this has now ceased back to November 2005 and HB/CTB cancelled accordingly and adjudication officers dec advises recovery from claimant. Landlord was unaware of the situation. Mr has submitted a new form and requested backdating to Nov 05 when wife left and HB ceased. He has shown good cause so backdating can be awarded. However, if HB awarded as backdated to Mr now, the landlord will have received Benefit twice for same peirod – albeit that if Mrs ever returns recovery will be sought from her. As we cannot offset the new underpayment for Mr against the o/p for Mrs how can we get round having to pay landlord twice?? Common sense would be to only backdate to where Mrs was paid up to in June 2006, but technically Mr would be entitled to it back to November 2005. Any ideas?? Thank you. Therese

[jmembery]

You could always pay benefit twice to the landlord, invoice Mr for the overpayment and get him to apply to the landlord for the rent credit to be repaid to him so that he can repay the overpayment.

Complex and not helped by the fact that MR has learning difficulties but it is one solution.

[Anonymous]

Award benefit to Mr from Nov 05, offset against the overpayment and be damned…?

[Anonymous]

I have already backdated to November and offset the overpayment, even though its wrong!! Naughty I know but it was the best thing to do I think! But I suspect that the landlord will be on to us before too long!

[Anonymous]

I don’t see why, unless Mr is entitled to less HB than was Mrs?

[Anonymous]

No they both qualify for max. But I think that the landlord from a letter they have sent in, are hoping to be paid twice for this. They may not do so, but trying to cover all eventualities. Therese

[Anonymous]

Well, that should be fairly easy to deal with!

[fiona_copland]

can you not say you have gone down the ‘blameless tenant’ route for recovery? 😆

Is this not a case where common sense prevails, just where to find that in the regs………………

[Julian Hobson]

This is interesting !

I presume Mrs was claimant and tenant and that Mr was neither ?

If he wasn’t the tenant then he can’t have HB from nov05 unless you treat him as liable under reg 8 1(c) and he can’t be liable to make payments for the period in Question becvause liability was extinguished by her HB.

If he has always been a or the tenant I think the same principle could apply. In terms of reg 8 1(a) there is no liability to make any payment between nov05 and june as it is extinguished by her HB.

When she comes back and you get the money back from her there will be a gap in HB but there should be.

I don’t think his HB should be backdated at all, he has no liability for the period in question.

[Anonymous]

[quote:e2bfae67f1]If he has always been a or the tenant I think the same principle could apply. In terms of reg 8 1(a) there is no liability to make any payment between nov05 and june as it is extinguished by her HB[/quote:e2bfae67f1]

I disagree – if both names were on the tenancy agreement, he was jointly liable…I think the fact we are talking about a past period whereas the regs are written in the present tense is irrelevant.

Then again, maybe I’m being a bit thick.

[Anonymous]

The tenancy is a joint one, so he has a liability, but that liability has been extinguished as you say. Common sense prevails paying the landlord twice, but I wasnt certain of the right way round of dealing with it correctly.

[Julian Hobson]

Have a look at Rv Haringey LBC ex p Ayub 1992 http://www.rightsnet.org.uk/pdfs/R_V_Haringey_exp_Ayub.pdf page 17 last para.

The decision was that once Hb is paid tenants liability to the landlord is [i:ca2c412555]pro tanto [/i:ca2c412555]extinguished (pro tanto means to that extent).

I think you can rely upon thisw to say that there is no liability.

[Anonymous]

No need, [b:f6c2f3dba6][i:f6c2f3dba6]I am being a bit thick![/i:f6c2f3dba6][/b:f6c2f3dba6]

[Julian Hobson]

Just to add a little bit to this.

I DON’T think the same logic applies where someone has paid their own rent to the L/L but would have had an entitlement to HB had they applied for it. Those are some of the very cases that backdating envisages.

This is where I think there might be an argument that what I have said before doesn’t add up.

I would suggest that the real difference here is that the benefit has been paid (not rent) and that in doing so the liability is extinguished. The payment of benefit is dependant upon a liability existing, it can’t be deemed to persist once the benefit is paid.

This isn’t the case with payment direct to tenant where the tenant then pays rent to the Landlord, nor would it be the case where rent had already been paid by the tenant out of their own pocket.

You’re not being thick Andy, you are being rightly cautious !

[Author]

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