I have a client who made a claim for, and was awarded Pension Credit from 16/04/04.

At the time of the claim no AIP was set because, I am told by the PS, she told the assessing officer that her house was on the market and they treated her income and capital as not being 'set'.

The house did not sell.

She then moved to rented sheltered accommodation on the 28/04/05 with the property still not having sold.

On the 30/11/05 her PC was reviewed and withdrawn on the grounds that she was making insufficient effort to sell it. Housing and Council Tax benefits were also withdrawn and overpayments of both have since been recovered in full.

She sold her property in Dec 05 and she has received no benefits at all since then.

The DWP tell me they have no paper evidence to show that any review of the circumstances was made at any time until the 30th Nov 05.

Should there not have been some sort of alert to review the case way before that? After all she did not actually move until more than 12 months had elapsed since the D.O.C. it would seem to me that would have been the proper time for a review and that a further review date should have been set for 26 weeks after the date of move to consider the issue of the property sale.

Can anyone give me advice and/or chapter and verse on the regs around the setting of AIP's at the commencement of a claim. Also, would it have any effect on their decision had she decided to take the property off the market while she was still living in it, notified the DWP of that fact, and then changed her mind and re-marketed the house at some stage after? Would they have then set an AIP?

Any and all advice sought please...............

Hi

Section 9(2) of the spc act 2002 will prevent the pensions service from setting an AIP if the clients retirement provision is not typical of the next 12 months.

If she claimed pension credit in April 2005 and was awarded 12 months backdating to April 04 then her retirement provision must be seen as typical during the 12 month backdating period because her date of claim was 16/4/04.

If however she claimed from the 16/4/04 with no backdating and she had her property on the market at the time then I think it would be very difficult to avoid no AIP being set.

Hope this helps

Thanks for this - I have now found out that the actual date of claim was in April 04 but the claim was backdated to 6/10/03 and this was before the house was on the market - would this mean that they should have set an AIP from 6/10/03?

The 12 months for the purpose of sect 9(2) would be from the 6/10/03 to 5/10/04.

the wording of Sect 9(2) is


(2) If the Secretary of State considers that the particulars of the claimant's retirement provision as determined for the purposes of the relevant decision are not likely, after taking account of any assumed variations under subsection (3), to be typical of the claimant's retirement provision throughout the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which that decision takes effect-

(a) he need not specify a period under section 6(1); and
(b) if he does so, he may specify a period shorter than 5 years (but beginning as mentioned in subsection (1)).


I think the key words for your client is 'not likely', as a prospective test.

Knowing that her property is on the market for sale in April 2004, is it likely to be sold before 6th October 2004?

Doh!

Think I'm on a hiding to nothing here then! I'll have a chat with the client to see if there's any other relevant info that I'm not aware of.

Thanks for your help.