× Search rightsnet
Search options

Where

Benefit

Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction

From

to

Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit migration  →  Thread

UC or HB?

splurge
forum member

Welfare officer - Peabody, London

Send message

Total Posts: 101

Joined: 16 June 2010

My client was receiving HB, WTC and PIP until November 2017.

I wrote to all benefit agencies and explained we were appealing the decision that her entitlement to PIP had ended, and could they suspend the claims.

Unusually, Tax Credits played ball, and in November 2018 reinstated WTC with the disability element and wiped out the overpayment.

The local authority however were a different matter. They asked for all earned income details which we supplied, and reduced the HB to a nominal amount. We kept them aware of PIP MR and await for the appeal, then they randomly wanted a certificate of earnings form despite having bank statements and payslips. This took longer than planned as the clients HR team were slow to process it.

The client sent it back two weeks after the one month time limit imposed. She states that she had told HB that this was delayed, but of course phone calls are notoriously hard to prove. This was in March 2018. I wrote updating them in April 2018 and received no response

We only found out the claim had ended in November 2018 when I called to say PIP was reinstated. I appealed the decision and by January 2019 had received no response. I called yesterday and they advised that the claim was closed and my client should have claimed UC.

I thought that intention to claim and request for the claim to remain suspended might have been enough to keep a claim live but suspended. it appears not. Is there anything I can do about this?

HB Anorak
forum member

Benefits consultant/trainer - hbanorak.co.uk, East London

Send message

Total Posts: 2895

Joined: 12 March 2013

There is plenty you can do.

A decision must have been made to end the previous HB award and it can be appealed as it was less than a year ago.  It sounds as if the mechanism by which the award ended was termination following suspension and the grounds for appeal would be that the claimant complied with HB (D&A) Reg 13 in that she provided a reason why she was unable to obtain the required information within a month - the Tribunal will decide whether her account is credible.

Alternatively, the Council might have drawn an “adverse inference” about her income, in which case the reinstatement of PIP provides “any time” grounds to revise that decision.

Above all, whatever the Council has done, they cannot simply “close” an HB award without further explanation (that’s DWP’s job!).

I would urgently request a copy of whatever HB decision was made back in April/May and challenge it on either/both of the above grounds.

Now there is always a risk that the HB appeal fails, so there is a judgement to be made about whether to cover against that by claiming UC going forward now.  Is she going to be better off remaining on legacy bens, assuming the HB appeal does succeed?  The general rule of thumb is that employed renters are better off on UC, but there is often an exception to that rule for disabled workers who do not have LCW.