Document Certifying Permanent Residence

I have a Portuguese national, single parent, age 26, living with her parents. No entirely sure of the history since she came to the UK but she has a blue card from the HO giving her permanent residence, which I understood is given if the individual has exercised treaty rights for five years and in effect those treaty rights match the requirements of the DWP to establish permanent residence for R2R.

Only current benefits were CB and CTCs. She has now made a claim for UC as she is being offered her own accommodation. UC have seen her paperwork but are now asking for details of her parents and how they currently support her.

What, if anything, am I missing? In what circumstances would the HO document not be sufficient for the DWP?

I don’t think you are missing anything - the DWP and UC in particular, is all over the place with this stuff. The HO residence card should be sufficient in this case**.

That said, a few things;

1. If the evidence can be easily obtained, it might make things quicker to obtain it. That has to be balanced against the fact that because the DWP get this stuff so wrong, it may be your client gets a negative decision even after the evidence has been provided. So there may be something to be said for going down the formal route - the legal presumption of regularity (“omnia praesumuntur rite esse acta”) is that the acts of public bodies such as the HO are assumed to be regarded and relied upon as lawful. This does not mean that it is never possible to go behind a HO decision to issue a permanent residence card, but a tribunal would be entitled to find the card was properly issued in the absence of any evidence to indicate otherwise and it would be for the DWP to come up with that evidence - in other words, tell UC to spit or cough.

2. You say that UC are asking for evidence about how the parents currently support your client - is it possible that what is being asked about here has nothing to do with the right to reside issue, but about your client’s level of entitlement? If she is regularly being supported by her parents financially (and if her only source of income for her and her kid(s) is CB and CTC, she probably is) then this is potentially income that can affect the amount of her award.

** - in this case, because it is a permanent residence card. Many residence cards issued to EU nationals by the HO will be to family members - i.e. to the spouse of a worker. Such cards are typically valid for 5 years. But they give a right of residence only for so long as the conditions under which they were issued hold true, so if the worker stops being a qualified person before 5 years, or the couple divorce within that time, the holder no longer has a right of residence. It’s an indication of how wrong UC get things that I have often seen it allow an MR or lapse an appeal on the basis that the claimant has been able to produce such a card, even where it is plain that the conditions under which it was issued no longer persist.

thanks so much for that reply, very much appreciated.

as it is UC have now accepted she has a R2R, so phew.