66 year old lady has shut second handbook shop which she rented, kept her books hoping to sell at auction. She has debts from the bookshop. No auction sales or self employed income this year. Auction estimate of books is about 25% of catalogue price. Pension Service have used full catalogue value of books and ignored all the debts - hence application for Savings credit has been refused.(Pension income too high for guarenteed credit.) She is also having a different problem with housing benefit. In May 07, she provided council with profit/ loss for April 06/07, which showed nil income but HB say they can't reassess from April 06. But she couldn't give them the figures until the end of the tax year. (HB have not asked about value of books) Can any of these decisions be appealed or are they correct?

What sort of figures are we talking about?
How long is it since she traded?

Business assets should be ignored for as long as you continue to work in that business. If there is a lot of stock or it is valuable or obvioulsly only a business assett, and if she has only recently stopped trading I would adrgue that making the arrangamenets for auction in effect means that she is still dealing with them as a business hence disregarded. The money raised can be used to pay of the debts, wouldn't think that deprivation would be problem.

If the person is not working due to illness, value can be disregared for 6 months initially if they intend to return to work. So if she has delayed organising the auction because of ill health this disregard might also apply.

Otherwise if she keeps them she could argue that they are personal possessions which are also disregarded, but I think that will depend on the volume and nature of the stock. I dare say there would also need to be some accounting adjustments and or tax implications, of which I know nothing!

If you did appeal, the business aspects of it mean that this would be a suitable case to request one of those rare birds (outside child support cases anyway)- a Financially Qualified Panel Member to sit on the Tribunal.

Does your client have an accountant - I mean a real one with letters after his/her name rather than just somebody with a computer rpogramme who does the books?

AND COmpletely o/t, maybe sonmeone should help her put them on eBay....might do better than at auction if there's something there someone really wants...

Thanks to everyone for all the extremely helpful advice. Are there any regulations that cover this type of situation?