Self-employment test for HB claimants? LA threatens suspenstion unless claimant provides answers about his work

Hope this doesn’t come over as a bit brusque, but it looks as if his HB is going to terminate in the next few days unless he provides the Council with a satisfactory response.  I would suggest that now is not the time to be playing games about what they can and cannot legitimately request.  I agree that it should have no bearing on his HB whether he tries to increase his income or not (unless he is an EEA national, then it might), HB is means tested and that’s it, there are no conditions relating to labour market activity.  So he could politely remind them that, as long as they are satisfied he is not concealing undisclosed income, it is no concern of theirs whether he chooses to make do with what he has or strives for more.  Two other questions that might seem unnecessary, but I can see why they are asking

- nature of supporting artist work - they want to judge whether the earnings are plausible for that line of work, by understanding what it is they will be in a better position to decide.  HB caseloads are full of plumbers and heating engineers who only declare £50 a week, you can understand the scepticism
- HMRC - well I assume he wouldn’t be daft enough to declare vastly higher income for tax purposes and not declare it for HB, so it might seem like a fishing exercise with no clear aim, but can it really hurt to tell them whether or not he does tax self-assessments? Is it worth making a stand over that?

But most of the questions are directed to whether he really does only earn that much and I think it is in his interests to answer them - bank statements especially will help to show that both income and outgoings are consistent with what he has declared.  If he has any savings from which he occasionally pays bills, he should say so; if it isnt too much trouble he could even produce a couple of utility bills shpowing an affordable amount due.

Councils are troubled by cases where the claimant does not appear to have sufficient income to meet their outgoings - especially when the income is self-employed earnings.  They become suspicious that the earnings are being under-declared.  I think it is in any claimant’s interests to provide evidence that would dispel those suspicions.

AA is probably meant to be Social Security Administration Act.

NHHB60+ appears to be a typo - it should be NIHB60+: shorthand for the Northern Ireland Housing Benefit Regulations for pension age claimants. I’m not sure why a London council would be quoting NI Regs, but the fact that they’ve included the HB Regs and HB60+ Regs would suggest they’re just copying and pasting from somewhere and don’t really know which rules they’re relying on, but that the rules are in this list somewhere. Probably we should start using HB65+ and NIHB65+ as shorthand now.

I’d agree that the tone of the letter comes across as a bit judgmental and rude. But the questions are all valid (with the possible exception of the question about increasing work) in terms of establishing whether your client is telling the truth about his income.

I am pretty sure those abbreviations come from Shelter’s Housing Benefit Guide (Lister and Ward).  If so then, yes, the NI ones relate to N.Ireland legislation.  They’re not much use to an ordinary member of the public (unless they have very esoteric reading habits)!

This may have arisen because DWP has initiated a nationwide review of self-employed HB claims where earnings have not been reviewed for more than a year.  I don’t know whether this person has been regularly declaring the same earnings, or just hasn’t been asked about their earnings for a long time.  If the latter then they have probably been caught up in this review.

The power comes from Reg 86(1) of the HB regs 2006