DLA HRM & MOTABILITY CAR SCHEME

Wondering if anybody has any suggestions…..............

I have recently taken on a DLA appeal. Client has been in receipt of DLA HRM and LRC since 1984. He has lost HRM on a renewal claim and this is currently on appeal.

I have just had a long telephone call with motability in an attempt to retain the car. However I was told that a policy came into effect in October last year where as soon as a decision is made to remove HRM, they automatically remove the car. There is no longer a discretion on a case by case basis….....

Does anybody know what else I can do to help him retain motability car otherwise he’s gonna be housebound?

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

I’ve encountered the same problem several times recently. They were prepared to use discretion previously where there was an ongoing dispute but they did indeed change their policy last October (apparently, mainly because appeals were taking so long to reach tribunal hearings). I honestly don’t think there’s anything you can do unless you can find a local or national charity prepared to pick up the tab for the duration.

This is a problem.

I think one thing to do is try and get the appeal expedited and then see if motability prepared to change their position.

I spent a while trying to work out whether Motability was performing public duties or not (and therefore subject to judicial review). It seemed to me that it was not. However, really I think one would need someone with more public law expertise than me to sort that out.

If someone could put together an argument that Motability was amenable to JR, then I think there must be a fairly good case for arguing the blanket policy on getting the car back which they operate is unlawful and certainly scope for forcing them to reconsider on an individual case whether they should take a different approach.

I had one recently in a similar situation but I managed to get DBC to reconsider their decision by providing some further medical evidence and doing a stronger reconsideration request than the one the client had done himself.
He did lose his car for a while whilst this took place but it meant that he didn’t have to wait for it be heard by a Tribunal and be without the car even longer. So if you could get hold of any additional evidence, it would be worth another shot at DBC.