Terms & Conditions

[Anonymous]

1. Does anyone know whether Pension Credit is a benefit from which HB/CTB overpayments can be recovered? I’m feeling too lazy to trace the tortuous-looking legal derivations in Reg 105. Thank you.

2. There doesn’t seem to be any amendment to the bits of HB Reg 12A that set out the information to be supplied in a Rent Officer referral. How will the RO know that the claimant is over 60 and that the referral is therefore not premature? Is there to be any change to nationally-used stationery/e-forms?

I know that strictly speaking it is for the council to decide whether the referral is due or not and the Rent Officer should simply value as instructed by the council, but it doesn’t always seem to work like that in practice: you quite often get Rent Officers overruling the council. So I wondered whether the liaison arangements between councils and Rent Officers will include some sort of 60+ indicator in future?

Thank you for any suggestions on either of these two points.

[webmaster]

I can answer the first question = yes

The Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (State Pension Credit) Regulations 2003 ……………

Amendments relating to recovery of overpaid housing benefit or excess council tax benefit

26. –

(1) In regulation 105 of the Housing Benefit Regulations (recovery of overpayments from prescribed benefits), in paragraph (1), at the end, add –

” (f) state pension credit.”.

(2) In regulation 91 of the Council Tax Benefit Regulations (recovery of excess benefit from prescribed benefits), in paragraph (1), at the end, add –

” (d) state pension credit.”.

as for RO referrals you are on your own for now

dave

[peterdelamothe]

is a moot point. LA’s still have to refer but will not have the up-to-date information any more (particularly in relation to temporary accommodation and eductions made by the landlord). The RO will just have to accept what we have got.

[Author]

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