Hi all. this case concerns suspension and termination of HB/CTB following failure to comply with a requirement to provide information required to determine enititlement/continuing entitlement. It states at para 13 that "in considering what has been reasonably required of a person by the local authority for the purposes of those sections , it is necessary that the requirement should have actually been communicated to the person in question, at least to the extent that it can be shown to have been delivered to him personally or in some other way, such as by being left at his home". "Those sections" refers (as I read the case) to reg 86(1) of the Housing Benefit regs which says a claimant shall provide such dox, information etc as may "reasonably be required" by the HB authority to determine entitlement (to be provided within one month or such longer period as the authority may consider reasonable).

The case specifically says that a letter asking for the information etc cannot be treated as having been received just because it was posted because of a mismatch between primary and secondary legislation (para 12).

Does this mean that the letter setting out the required information must be actually handed personally to the claimant or possibly sent by recorded delivery?? This seems astonishing.

A large amount of HB is at stake in my case and it may turn on this point. Can anyone shed any light? If it does mean what it seems to mean this would be hugely onerous for HB authorities and I would have expected Parliament to have legislated by now to remedy the problem. But it hasn't??

"Does this mean that the letter setting out the required information must be actually handed personally to the claimant or possibly sent by recorded delivery?? "

I don't think it quite means that. What it means is that if a clmt denies receiving the communication in question, there is simply no legal provision the LA can rely on to say "it was sent, the law says it is deemed to have been received by the clmt".

In practice, this will be a question of the clmt's credibility. Did s/he receive it or not?

No she did not receive it. Council has yet to say whether they accept that or not.

this discussion thread was also started in the HB forum ...

i've deleted the other thread ... but here's a response it received there from jmembery, Benefits Manager AVDC, Aylesbury Vale DC -

'I don't think the decision is quite as onerous on LAs as you suggest. My understanding is that in these sort of circumstances, if a claimant subsequently states that they did not receive the request for information, the Authority has to make a decision whether to accept that statement or not.

If they accept the statement they must request the information again and extend the time limit for providing it. If they don’t accept the statement, there is no need to re-request information or extend the time limit, but they must be prepared to have sufficient reasons/evidence to defend the position at tribunal.

In my view, if the LA just posted the request for info through the normal post, it is likely that at Tribunal they will have to prove that the request was properly sent and that once they have proved this it will be for the claimant to prove it was not received.

As you suggest, the credibility of the claimant and their evidence will possibly be an important part of the consideration, as will the creditability of the evidence supplied by the LA.'

OK, thanks. That all makes sense.

I posted it in the other thread as well because I thought more people would be likely to look at it there, and that was where I had originally meant to post it (!) I still think that but if you are not allowed to have something in 2 categories, so be it....

no problem hili ..... i can move the thread if you'd like?

yes please shawn, could you, many thanks

no probs .... done !