Housing Costs run on

It’s Friday so I’m not at my best so forgive me if this is obvious;

My client is a lone parent of a small child. She has had to leave her mortgaged flat and stay with family to get more support. The flat has been up for sale for nine months but no one has bought it, even after the price was reduced by £10,000.00.

She has continued to have the service charges for the flat paid by ESA but now she wants to rent a property of her own. There are no issues about domestic violence or hospital care and I can’t see anything in Sch. 6 of the ESA regs that would permit the service charges to carry on once she has stopped having any intention to return to the flat- am I right in this?

It would appear not.

CPAG p.430 (CIS/297/1994).

Doesn’t paragraph 5(6)(c) cover it?  It’s the equivalent of getting HB on two homes after moving out of one with an unavoidable notice period.  I cannot see anything in either the HB Regs or the ESA Regs that prevents mixing and matching: the claimant will be liable to make payments in respect of two dwellings (albeit different kinds of payments).

CIS/247/1994 failed because the claimant didn’t occupy the dwelling at the start of the loan so it never came within the scope of IS in the first place.  This is different: the loan is already in scope and Sched 6.5(6)(c) keeps it that way for four weeks.