EU national - ESA IR appeal and stop notice to HB

I have an EU national who has been in the UK since 2008 and worked until July 2009 where she has been on ESA and JSA continuously ever since with an entitlement to HB.

She failed to attend her WCA last year and did a MR. This was not revised so she went to appeal where it was overturned. ESA was backdated and she was placed into the WRAG. In the meantime she applied for UC and a stop notice was sent to the HB dept.

She has failed the HRT for UC. We did an MR and she was told that the work she did was not registered under the WRS so she cannot be awarded permanent residence. So we are considering an appeal….however I have been told two conflicting lots of info regarding the stop notice. The HB team leader states that once a stop notice has been received there is no going back and the gateway is closed. The other advice states that the stop notice should not be issued to HB until there is an eligibility to claim UC….so does this mean that the HRT should be conducted first or that as soon as the submit button is pressed for UC that triggers the stop?

I thought I was being to get my head around HRT etc and UC but this case has thrown me!

The stop notice is invalid. The DWP can only issue a stop notice if the claimant meets the basic conditions of entitlement under s4(1) WRA 2012 - see Reg 8(1)(b) UC (TP) Regs 2014. One of those conditions is that the claimant is in the UK - s4(1)(c). You don’t count as in the UK if you are found not to have a right to reside per Reg 9 UC Regs.