CH0069/2003 is being misrepresented here. It does not say that if a claimant does not declare an income even if shown on bank statements then it’s not the LAs fault. It simply says that, in that case, it was not obvious what those payments on the bank statements were and the LA had no duty to investigate.
If, for example, you have a claimant whose bank statements were submitted and say very clearly what the payment was, then the case law is irrelevant and a disclosure would clearly have been made.
Also arguable that this is unlikely to be seen as good case law. Nowadays most tribunals faced with this and the sheer complexity of what claimants face in respect of benefits would be likely to conclude that a credit paid at exact 4 weekly intervals at minimum puts a LA on notice of something to investigate.
In this instance I would think any money labelled “Deposit” would raise a question in the mind of any competent decision maker. It would instantly put the LA on notice to enquire further as people on benefits don’t tend to conjure regular deposits out of nowhere but it would then come down to what the frequency was and what else had been said.
Plenty of solid case law nowadays around the fact that if, for example, the claimant has received no clear documentation advising them of the need to declare specific items such as maintenance payments then it’s much harder to argue that they knew the need to declare etc.
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