Hi Everyone i have a bit of a problem with this case and any suggestions will be gratful.
I have a gentleman who is 60 and moved into Trust HA sheltered flat beacuse of his illness and required support. He was a former tenant of another HA called Fife Specialist. He moved in on the 30/05/07 and sent a tenancy termination letter to Fife Council who he beleived that they were his landlord. He filled in a Housing Benefit form on the 30/05/07 but it was returned to him because it was not completed on the 09/07/07 asking him to complete it. This gentleman is severly,mentally impaired and cannot deal with his own affairs and he does have a social worker. He never returned it and they close down the claim without notifying him. To make matters worse Fife Specialist are not part of Fife council and the termination letter was sent to fife council who never did anything with it (and now denying ever receving anything)and rent was paid normally to Fife Specailist even though he was living at Trust H.A until 24/09/07. He has since moved out and is living back at Fife Specialist but now the Trust H.A is chasing him for arrears more than £3,000. I am arguing that there was enough information on the claim to trigger a change of circumstances as he was still in the same LA Area. As no notification was sent to the claimant about HB beening defective, does that give me grounds to appeal on that existing claim or do we need to fill in a new one (even though the one month limit has lapsed)? Also what would be the best way forward for this tenant, as an overpayment is going to occur one way another.

Here are the issues as I see them.

Firstly
The claimant had a change in circumstances when he moved from one property to another. He was required to notify the change of circumstances to the LA in writing which he understood that he was doing by completing a new claim form.

As long as the claimant had his name on the form, the address he was moving from and the address he was moving to then I don’t think the LA has any grounds for arguing that this was not proper notification.

It appears that the LA chose to treat this as a new claim and, totally contrary to the DWP guidance given in Bulletin G8 2007 sent this form back to him. This does not change the fact that your client had already notified the change of circumstances when he submitted the form in the first place.

Secondly.
Payment continued to the “old” landlord.
If I were you I would be arguing that the resulting overpayment is clearly official error as the LA had been notified of a change and not responded to it. Given the age and state of health of your client I suspect that you would be in a strong position to refute any argument that he should have realised he was being overpaid.

Thirdly
As far as payment for the Trust HA property is concerned you should be arguing that as the claimant notified the change of circumstances promptly by submitting a claim form the LA must now action that change of circumstances and pay the claim for the period he was at the other property.

I doubt the LA will like it but, as long as you have evidence that the LA did receive the form in the first place, I think you have a very strong case.

thank you for that, so i better get writing!