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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

Start date of UC claim

geep
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WRO, housing management, Notting Hill Housing

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Joined: 24 October 2013

My client claimed UC on 11 April after his job ended. A question on the UC application asked if he was going to earn more than a certain amount in the next month and he said no because his job had ended. However, he didn’t realise that his last wages would count, and when the DWP received info’ from HMRC about his last wages they wrote to him on 18 May and told him that the wages had nullified his UC claim and he would have to do a new claim.

Is it correct for the DWP to make him do a new claim? It seems a shame that they can’t keep the claim open and just start paying him from the second assessment period.

If the DWP are correct to make him do a new claim, my next question is what date he should have claimed from, and can he ask for backdating? If his first claim had continued, I think his first assessment period would have ended on the 18 May due to the 7 waiting days. So should he be asking for the new claim to start on 19 May? He actually put in a new claim on 20 May because that’s when he received the UC letter saying his first claim was not valid.

Alternatively, if the DWP are saying that the first claim was not valid and basically doesn’t exist, shouldn’t the second claim have started from the day after he received his last wages on 22 April? If he had claimed on that day, he wouldn’t have received any wages in his first assessment period and would be better off than having the claim start on 19 May. Even if, ideally, the second claim should have started on 23 April, it doesn’t look like the criteria for backdating cover his situation - even though he couldn’t have made the second claim any earlier than 20 May because that’s when he received the DWP letter saying the first claim was invalid.

SarahJBatty
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Money Adviser, Thirteen, Middlesbrough

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Is your client in a Gateway area rather than full service?
If so shouldn’t they treat his UC claim as a JSA claim? The transitional regs / commencement orders (sorry not got sight of them right now) allow for this if a claimant gives ‘incorrect’ information and it is spotted by DWP before a UC payment is made?

geep
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WRO, housing management, Notting Hill Housing

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Thanks for that, I’ve now found the reg you were referring to in the transitional regs. The only problem might be that he has already made another UC claim - which will probably be accepted because he fits the criteria now, unlike the first time he applied. Can he withdraw the UC claim and apply for JSA quoting the transitional regs to get it backdated to the first date that he claimed UC?

If he had answered the UC questions correctly originally and had been told to claim JSA instead, what would have happened in the week that he received his last wages? Would he have received no JSA money in that week and then have gone back to full JSA the week after?

geep
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WRO, housing management, Notting Hill Housing

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Total Posts: 181

Joined: 24 October 2013

Sorry to bump this back up, but I’m now pretty sure that I can use Reg 13 of the UC (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2013 to get the JSA and HB claims paid from the date of my client’s first (invalid) UC claim - as long as he claims them within one month of being told that his first UC claim was invalid.

However, my main concern is that since then he has put in another UC claim because he didn’t know that he might be able to claim JSA and HB instead. As he has already received his last wages payment, he now meets the criteria of UC so I’m not sure if it’s possible for him to now close the new UC claim and use the transitional regs to claim JSA and HB (the transitional regs don’t mention what to do if someone has made a new UC claim since their first claim was rejected).

SarahJBatty
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Money Adviser, Thirteen, Middlesbrough

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I would be tempted to argue that DWP should process JSA claim which they will need to do clerically, then simply remove clerically the UC claim. If they fuss, then point out the complexity of their gateway criteria are the cause of the confusion. How much benefit will your client get from returning to JSA/HB?