Managed Migration - Tax Credits or Income Support?

Hi,

I have a client booked in next week for an issue with an issue with Transitional Protection and hoped I get some info to tell her.

The background is that the client was claiming CA, IS, HB and CTC - was also claiming DLA for child. There was a mix-up with the renewal of her child’s DLA form which meant her IS stopped as did all other benefits (apart from CTC).

As she has housing costs, she was advised to make a claim for UC as that was “the only way” - a HB adviser did also briefly mention that she may be able to go back onto legacy benefits if the DLA is reinstated and back-dated.

In the meantime, she received a migration letter from Tax Credits to move over. She did move over as she was under the impression she would receive TP.

DWP have refused to give TP on the basis that it was her IS stopping that made her move and not the Migration Notice!

My initial thoughts are to appeal this decision on the basis that she actually went through the Natural Migration notice and not because her IS stopped.

Any guidance would be much appreciated

What are the dates of the UC claim and migration notice?

If she claimed UC after receiving a managed migration notice, then it’s managed migration.  It doesn’t matter whether she would have been thinking about a UC claim anyway.

To use the legal terminology, she became a “notified person” upon receiving the MM notice, and when UC is claimed by a “notified person”, managed migration rules apply.

Cessation of IS is an event that might very well cause a person to ponder the option of claiming UC, but that is not a legal matter, it is a personal thought process.

See Regs 44(6) and 48 of the UC (Transitional Provisions) Regs 2014

It sounds as if this could be a complicated case with a legacy benefit appeal/MR turning on the reinstatement of DLA, and all of this is likely to affect the calculation of both transitional protection and regular UC retrospectively, but the key point here is that this is a managed migration case.