HB when moving within same LA area but change not reported timeously

Hi

I have a client who receives ESA(IR) and was claiming HB for supported accommodation.  In January he moved directly into social housing in the same council area and so can continue to claim ESA and HB, under the usual rules.

The problem is that he has not reported this change of circumstances to HB until now.  The reasons for the delay are unclear.

His HB claim for the previous supported accommodation will have been closed.

My question is that given that “new” HB claims are no longer possible, will he be forced to claim UC?  He’ll be much worse off, especially because he does permitted work.

I’m trying to get my head around whether the change of circumstances can link the 2 HB awards, close the gap and allow him to remain on legacy benefits, or is it too late to achieve this.

The online “system” won’t allow him to continue with the HB claim so I’ll need to intervene - I’m thinking that he can late report this CoC and get a supersession on the decision to close the previous claim?

I’d be grateful for any thoughts on this.

Thanks

so - when he moved, what **** should **** have happened is that the LA should have suspended his HB claim and contacted him to say ” where are you living/ what are you doing?

Its possible the LA were advised via ATLAS of the change of address, or even by the landlord of the supported accommodation. Either way, moving out of address A and into address B doesn’t automatically end the HB claim.

Assuming the claim was suspended, the customer had a month (minimum) to provide the info. before the claim would have been terminated due to failure to provide info. The termination decision has appeal rights,

If the claim wasn’t suspended, the LA will have to revise the terminating decision because a claim can only go from being ive and in payment to closed in very limited circumstances ( death, moving out of the borough, claiming UC or having an change in income /circumstances which reduces ent to nil)

You need to ask the LA to confirm the dates they suspended/ terminated the claim and ask for a revision , giving reasons why its appropriate to extend the initial month time limit / why ther customer didnt report the changes/reply to suspension letters .

Assuming the rent for the new address is lower than the rent for the old address, there is no time limit to report this as a change of circumstance because it is not an advantageous change.

The only issues with time limits are:

- if he failed to comply with a reasonable evidence request and his award was terminated as described by Prisca, or
- if a decision was made that he no longer satisfied the HB entitlement conditions, in the absence of any evidence that he still did, and he did not appeal against that decision within a month

What he needs now is revision of any decision that has been made to end his HB award, whether by termination or a substantive decision about entitlement.

For completeness, if the new ret is higher than the old rent, his failure to report it promptly could mean that his HB, once reinstated, does not increase from the previous rate until the day when the change was reported.  But failure to report an advantageous change per se is not a reason for HB to end.

Thank you both for your replies.

This is very helpful.

Things are still a little unclear and I’m in the process of gathering information, but given that the old rent was supported accommodation and the new rent is social housing I suspect that the new rent will be lower - so this makes things easier because it won’t be an advantageous change.

I agree that the way forward is to get the decision to close the claim revised and if there are issues with time limits then this client has very significant difficulties managing their affairs so I think we’ll be okay.

Thank you