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Housing Benefit - Temporary absence / intention to return
Hello
Just some advice please.
We have a claimant who was receiving housing benefit at a property until November 2016. She has had to leave her property and move into temporary accommodation due to fire damage. She then left the temporary accommodation and was detained in a hospital.
Her property is inhabitable and she is unable to return to this property so she has been given a new property with ourselves (social housing) from 20 Feb 2017.
We have tried to claim HB under temp absence rules at the old address which was damaged as the period has been less than 13 weeks, but it seems that there is no longer any intention to return as the property is inhabitable and claimant has been offered and accepted a new tenancy elsewhere.
Therefore as there is no intention to return, no HB can be paid for period November 2016 when she had to leave the property until 19 Feb 2017 when her tenancy is ending.
Claimant will now have to submit a UC claim as we are in UCFS area and backdating is only 1 month so unable to clear the rent arrears for temporary absence period.
Has anyone encountered anything similar?
Surely her intention was to return to the property in November, so her HB claim should have continued in payment for up to 13 weeks from that date, or until she took up the offer of the new tenancy, whichever came first?
Or to put it another way, why did they close her HB claim in November? That’s the decision I think you’d be looking to get changed, rather than submitting a claim now.
Agree with Paul except for the 13 week bit. There is no time limit on temporary absence due to essential repairs (see Reg 7(4))
Agree with Paul except for the 13 week bit. There is no time limit on temporary absence due to essential repairs (see Reg 7(4))
Ah, thanks for that, well spotted.
Err, the landlord has been charging her rent for a property that was uninhabitable due to a fire…......
That’s true Martin, and you’ve also made me think that the reason the HB claim was stopped was another claim being made for temporary accommodation.
HB was originally cancelled as their department were notified by a hostel that claimant had moved into one of their accommodation on 28/11/2016. At this point they were not aware that this move was temporary and assumed it was permanent so cancelled claim at her address.
LA social landlord continued to charge rent as it was the client who damaged the property intentionally (she has severe mental health problems) so charged rent while trying to find her alternative accommodation which they now have.
This is the timeline I have:
22/11/16 – claimant moved to temp accommodation for her safety (requested by police – intention to return to once police investigation was complete).
28/11/16 – claimant relocated to temporary accommodation (hostel) – still for safety reasons – still an intention to return but police investigations were still ongoing.
01/12/16 – claimant returned to her address despite police concerns for her safety.
17/12/16 – claimant set fire to property and was immediately sectioned in the police station and moved to Hospital Clinic.
19/01/17 – claimant discharged from Clinic in to her friends care as she could not return to her property as extensive repairs were still needed to the property.
23/01/2017 - started looking for new accommodation with a different Housing provider.
10/02/17 – claimant signed up to new property with a start date of 20/02/17.
My reading of the situation is HB is at least payable until 23/01/2017 as this would be when her intention to return ended as she was looking for a new property? The decision HB have made is that no HB is payable from Nov 2016 unless tenant returns to the property prior to moving to the new address.
I only just got the timeline of events to pass to the HB team yesterday so they will be able to reverse their decision to pay until at least 17/12/2016 when tenant set fire to the property as they have been told so far that the fire happended in November.
[ Edited: 16 Feb 2017 at 10:41 am by TF ]Well that’s simply nonsense.
But even if the LA were right, a return to the property of 24 hours is sufficient to start an entirely new period of temporary absence - in this case, the return from 1/112/2016 - 17/12/2016 is far longer (whilst also evidencing an intention to return as at 22/11/2016).
Isn’t there a problem here though that HB can’t be paid on two homes in these circumstances, so if it’s been paid for the temporary hostel, that means it can’t be paid for the uninhabitable property?
She was only in temporary accommodation for 8 days - the rest of the time she was in a hospital then on release from there staying with friends/family