Odd outcome?

HI
we currently have a gentleman who claims UC and has housing costs for a private tenancy.  A decision has been made not to pay the housing costs as it is alleged that this is a contrived tenancy. The gentleman is disputing the decision and has requested a mandatory reconsideration.  However, rather than pay the amount of UC (without HC pending the MR) the case manager has suspended payment altogether and asked the claimant to remove the housing costs from the claim.  We are wary of this, and have never come across this before.  The claimant is still asserting that he has housing costs so why would he remove them.  UC have not really addressed the issue but have given us some information as to why they cant remove things without clmts consent (which isnt really the point). Payment isnt due for another 3 weeks and the situation may be resolved before then, but if not, we will have a vulnerable man left without income.  Surely, if they are asserting that claimant is not eligible, they make the decision not to include HC, pay and pay the balance until the MR is decided? My question is has anyone else ever come across something like this? or is there any procedural guidance that states that this is what should be done?

The only cases I have come across where this happens is where the case has been passed to the Risk Review Team, who suspend payments for months on end, usually whilst they are looking into HRT/ Housing or Childcare Costs.
I have come across so many cases of Case Managers not following process recently, I can not really see any reason why they would suspend the whole payment.

Thank you so much. We have heard today that the decision has been changed at MR so hopefully, we dont have any more cases like this.

That’s a good result, I mean it should not really have happened anyway but this is the best outcome at this stage.