Pension Credit and Right to Reside/HRT

Apologies for posting about this issue again but I have just had some correspondence from pension service about a client who had a positive perm RTR decision in January now saying “You have asked us to look again at the decision about Pension Credit issued on 9.2.16. We have therefore looked again at the facts and evidence that were used to make that decision and at the points that you have raised and as a result we have changed the decision. We have now decided tou do not have the right to reside and cannot be treated as habitually resident in the UK. We have suspended payments of PC with immediated effect”. The letter then goes on to ask for evidence that the client says was provided at a verification visit in January. I cannot be sure the evidence was provided as I was not involved at this stage and PC are now saying the visiting officer has bot recorded the details of the evidence he saw.

My question around this is regarding the opening line of the PC letter “you have asked us to look again…” The client has not asked the DWP to look again, in fact he was delighted with their decision. My belief is this has come about following the clients child claiming a derived RTR. I know DWP can look at their decisions any time they like but it appears they have decided to treat this as the client asking for a review when in fact it was prompted by another persons actions. Does anyone have any thoughts around this? I cannot continue with the appeal for childs RTR while the PC is in dispute so it has had massive implications for these 2 clients.

All thoughts/comments gratefully received.

This is the other appeal (i.e. for the child) you’ve previously posted about, isn’t it?

Anyway, the ‘you have asked us to look again’ is a red herring and irrelevant - forget it. They can look at the decision again if they think they’ve got it wrong.

Their revisiting the decision is almost certainly prompted by the fact that in your appeal (for the child) you are relying on the parent’s RtR - as you’ve raised this as an issue, they’ve decided to check on the parent’s RtR and realised the evidence is missing. Unfortunate, but there it is - can’t see a way around you having to provide the evidence.

(Of course, assuming the evidence is there to show parent has a permanent RtR, you can complain about the fact they’ve lost it/failed to upload it and the inconvenience this has caused your clients - but it isn’t going to get past you having to provide it. Though if it’s the case I’m thinking of, you’ve still got the option of getting the FtT to direct a CIS check on the parent’s NI contribution record as per kerr principles).