Circumstances under which the value of owner-occupied property can be disregarded in a claim for IS.

The value of property owned but not occupied by an IS claimant can be disregarded for at least six months, provided the claimant is taking ‘reasonable steps’ to dispose of it. Is there any caselaw to clarify how the expression ‘reasonable steps’ should be interpreted? In particular is any allowance made for problems experienced by the claimant which prevents then from taking steps which it would be reasonable for a person without such problems to take?

My client is chronically alcohol-dependent. She moved from owner-occupied to rented property, but because she was incapable of putting the house herself she owned on the market she delegated the work to her mother. She asked her mother before she moved to contact an estate agent, but it was not until three months after she moved that her mother did so. My client was on IS before she moved but her claim has been disallowed between the date she moved and the date the property eventually went on the market.

I would like to argue at tribunal that because of my client’s condition, delegating the work of putting her property up for sale to someone who she reasonably expected would act in her best interests was the only reasonable step she could take and that she should not be penalised for that person’s failure to act in the way she expceted. Will that wash?

I agree.  R(IS) 4/97 confirms that the test is an objective one.  So it is the steps of the claimant and not the steps (or lack of) of others that is the issue.  Second, CIS/4757/2003 confirms that a person’s health is a factor that can be taken into account when judging the claimant’s actions.

However, I don’t think anything turns on the tense of the paragraph.  The paragraph must be read as a whole.  It reads as follows:

“Any premises where the claimant is taking reasonable steps to dispose of those premises, for a period of 26 weeks from the date on which he first took such steps, or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances to enable him to dispose of those premises”.

In common everyday speech a person once he has put his house on the market and is waiting for a prospective buyer to contact him says when asked “I’m selling my house”.  He sees the entire process until final disposition as an active one where he is selling his house although he might be doing little or nothing at all throughout the relevant period.

It is the phrase of the paragraph “from the date on which he first took such steps, or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances to enable him to dispose of those premises” which supports this approach.  The phrase “to dispose of” must be given its ordinary everyday meaning as “to get rid of” or “to deal with”.

The case law also bears this out as it makes it clear that the 26 weeks runs from the date the first step was taken and that could be before the IS claim was made.  Evidence at the date (or soon after) of claim that the house had been put on the market would clearly, in my view, bring the disregard into play even though the claimant had done nothing since.  Indeed in cases I’ve been involved with in the past decision makers’ first, and often sufficient, interest is evidence of the house up for sale.

I’ve used an example here of the step being the actual putting the house on the market which is different on the facts.  I’ve done this for simplicity of illustration and I trust I have not obscured the principle.