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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

Withdrawing UC claim and making fresh claim

AlexJ
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Trafford Welfare Rights

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Total Posts: 178

Joined: 4 July 2016

Hello

I have a client who called us today, she has just made a claim for UC on 28th November, she has finished work on the grounds of ill health. She went to her new claim appointment today.

Unfortunately, it transpires that she received her last wage payment on 28th November, and so this falls to be taken into account in respect of her UC claim for the first assessment period, running from 28th November - 27th December.

What are people’s views about her withdrawing the UC claim today, and then making a fresh claim tomorrow? Will this work? Her assessment period will then run from 3rd of one month to 2nd of the next month, and obviously the wages then won’t be taken into account. 

Edit: I’m looking at reg 31 of the UC (claims and payments) regulations 2013, which suggests that a claim can be withdrawn before it is decided.

Thanks

Alex

[ Edited: 2 Dec 2019 at 02:50 pm by AlexJ ]
Elliot Kent
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Shelter

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You can withdraw a claim before it is decided. Your client’s claim presumably hasn’t been decided, so she can withdraw it and it is then treated as though it were never made. Theoretically, she would then be in a position to reclaim if this were considered better tactically for whatever reason.

Obviously the question for your client is whether the advantage of shunting her date of claim slightly is worth it in view of the fact that UC systems will probably have difficulty coping with this sort of manoeuvre and there is ample scope for something to go wrong.

Timothy Seaside
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Housing services - Arun District Council

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I have a client who ended their claim in pretty much the opposite of these circumstances - they ended up much worse off as a result of a different, and very unfavourable, assessment period. But there weren’t any technical difficulties with the new claim. Obviously that doesn’t mean your client’s new claim will go smoothly, but I can’t see any specific reason why it shouldn’t.