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Managed Migration - Notice missed due to eviction/homeless
Hello,
We have been contacted by someone whose Tax Credits had ended. I had assumed correctly that this was because they missed a Migration Notice. The reason they missed this is because they had been evicted from their home, and are currently sofa surfing/homeless. They had assumed incorrectly that letting HB know they had been evicted had notified the DWP.
They are still within the time of the “final deadline day” to claim, (the length of an AP after their migration notice date) - however they are wondering whether they can get their Tax Credits back in payment and their migration notice extended - due to MH and Homelessness issues.
They have some very weird self employed/business issues - that need resolving ideally before they move to UC.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks
Several questions. When did the Tax Credits cease? Migration day? If that’s the case then surely claiming UC before the final deadline day gets them UC back one month and there’s no gap.
Sofa surfing are not, there will have been more than one reminder and a text message. Any reason they would have missed the latter?
Are you quite sure this is managed migration and not Tax Credit renewal? Because managed migration at the moment is supposed to be confined to people with Tax Credits and no other legacy benefits. The normal tax credit renewal deadline would have been end of July.
There is also “discovery” going on which throws a small number of others into the mix and we’re finding some where there are other legacy benefits for an interesting variety of reasons.
Client called Tax Credits and was told that he had been sent a Migration notice on the 17th April to his old address… so 3 months from that would have been 17th July which matches when his Tax Credits ended.
He had also renewed his tax credits as he had texts from HMRC to do this.
Client doesn’t seem to have received any texts from UC about migration - but surely they would be sending these to the same number HMRC had.
Client has psychosis which isn’t always severe, but can come on in episodes of stress.
Hello,
We have been contacted by someone whose Tax Credits had ended. I had assumed correctly that this was because they missed a Migration Notice. The reason they missed this is because they had been evicted from their home, and are currently sofa surfing/homeless. They had assumed incorrectly that letting HB know they had been evicted had notified the DWP.
They are still within the time of the “final deadline day” to claim, (the length of an AP after their migration notice date) - however they are wondering whether they can get their Tax Credits back in payment and their migration notice extended - due to MH and Homelessness issues.
They have some very weird self employed/business issues - that need resolving ideally before they move to UC.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks
DWP have said to us that you can’t get an extension on deadline day after it has passed so I don’t think that option works.
However, if he was on HB it is possible the migration notice was sent in error and you could ask them to withdraw it (or he’s part of discovery and you could ask for the same on the grounds of his homelessness and MH). However, if they don’t withdraw it’s really important to get the application in before his final deadline day so UC backdated to end of tax credits and any transitional protection is put in place.
Hi all - case update - the client found a letter which said that his migration notice was sent a few days earlier than HMRC had told him on the phone, this means that his final deadline day (ie. 3 months + 1 month) was in fact a couple of days earlier and so by his date of claim to UC he has actually missed the final deadline day by 2 or 3 days and thus missed out transitional protection.
I see in Reg 45 of the UC TP Regs, that a request for an extension to deadline day can’t be made after it has passed, so I think we are stuck, but - and I feel like this may have been asked elsewhere - could the claimant make use of the standard 1 month backdating in UC under reg 26 of the UC etc. Claims and Payments Regs, to backdate his claim to UC by one month and thus fall within scope for transitional protection??
I note that Reg 46 (3) of the UC TP Regs 2014 specifically prevents this in cases where someone has claimed UC after the first deadline day (3 months), but before the final deadline day (3 months + 1 month). His is a different scenario
Thoughts welcomed!
I think technically no, because reg 26 UC (C&P) Regs doesn’t treat you as having claimed on an earlier date, and the TP regs don’t provide for ‘treated as’ claims in this way anyway
I’ve got reg 26 to work when arguing reg 19 UC (TP) cases (ie backdating UC to when someone was still on old style ESA got them their LCWRA element from day 1). But reg 19 specifically says ‘the date on which the claim for universal credit was made or treated as made’
There’s no reference to ‘treated as made’ in reg 46. So I think the intention is that you can’t use reg 26 C&P Regs to get backdating to between the deadlines and then use reg 46(3) TP Regs.
This is only a thought though, I haven’t tried it. I suppose your client should ask for backdating anyway to minimise his loss (assuming they have grounds under reg 26)
Could he complain to HMRC about the wrong advice on the deadline? Would he have been able to claim by the final deadline if they’d got it right on the phone?
Thanks for your clearer thinking Will, The client has been advised to request a backdate in any case.
I think had he known the true final deadline date, he would probably have made his claim in time, but there’s a difficulty isn’t there in that he didn’t update his address with HMRC after it changed, which was a couple of months before the migration notice was issued (appreciate the circumstances were difficult). So as the migration notice is issued by UC, but on the basis of info held b HMRC, wouldn’t its accuracy depend on the claimant maintaining their details?
Absolutely agree that you can’t complain to HMRC about the client not getting the migration notice.
I still think there might be a complaint IF HMRC gave him wrong details of when the notice was sent out (I don’t know if they have access to this info, but either they did, & got it wrong, or perhaps they shouldn’t have claimed to know)? The deadline is not affected by info held by HMRC, it just depends on when UC get round to sending you a notice, & when they set the deadline.
As for a complaint about the address issue itself - this would be to DWP - they knew he was no longer getting HB (otherwise he shouldn’t have got a migration notice, as we now know Bristol isn’t a discovery area). But I don’t think you can therefore argue they should have known he wasn’t living there any more.
There might just be a complaint (to DWP) saying they should have excluded him from the process if his post got returned. But I’m guessing that it didn’t, and again, the failure of someone at his old address to do that isn’t on the DWP.
So I agree you can’t complain about DWP sending a notice to his old address, as he hadn’t informed HMRC, but you could still complain about HMRC giving him the wrong date on which the migration notice was sent out.