Housing costs for short periods

Client came to see me yesterday at outreach with a statement of reasons from a UC tribunal.

Client has longstanding and complex MH problems and has recently been diagnosed with ASD also. She became homeless. Homelessness application to LA refused. Client was then bouncing between different hotels and hostels in an attempt to stay off the streets. Most stays in each place for a matter of days at the most, client states that she left some places because they were mixed hostels and she did not feel safe and other places because it was not possible to book more than a couple of days in a row. After about a month of this client left London to stay with her mother (I haven’t asked why she did not do this in the first place when she lost her original accommodation).

Client appealed arguing that UC should cover (or at least pay shared room rate towards) the money she spent on the hotels/hostels.

Tribunal found that whilst the payments could be treated as housing costs for UC purposes client was not occupying any of the various places as her ‘normal home’. Client disputes this - as far as she is concerned her only other option was to be street homeless. The reasoning for the finding was very brief - a single sentence about the very short length of time client spent in each place. On this point in isolation I think you could make a very speculative argument that the reasoning/discussion of the issues was inadequate.

What I wanted to check though was a further reason given by the tribunal as to why the UC could not include housing element, even if they had found that any or all of the places could be treated as her ‘normal home’. The tribunal stated that because of the way that UC works (with changes of circumstances taking effect from the beginning of the assessment period) then any period of accommodation that exists ‘within’ an assessment period effectively does not exist for UC purposes as claimant is treated as moving in and then out of the accommodation on the same day at the beginning of the AP. Is this correct? If so the ‘normal home’ argument becomes irrelevant and I can give client much clearer advice that her appeal has no merit (at the moment she is planning to seek advice from other services).

Thanks!!!

As long as a person is living and paying rent somewhere on the last day of the AP, they will get a housing element for the month based on the housing costs that exist on that final day.  Any ups and downs and short stays or gaps during the month will be subsumed within this flat rate housing element for the month.  But if the claimant does not occupy any dwelling as his/her home on the last day of the AP, there won’t be a housing element for the whole month.

The occupation issue is certainly arguable and there is a fair amount of case law.  If the Tribunal fails to cite any of it, that in itself could very well be an error of law (per incuriam).  A useful one to start with is 2013 UKUT 65 AAC which the claimant actually lost but you should be able to find things to distinguish.  This case concerned a night shelter where:

- there was no right to stay for longer than a single night
- there was no right to leave possessions on site during the day time

Both of those factors will be absent if someone books into a B&B or a hostel even for just a few days - you can leave your stuff in your own private room, go out, come back again in the evening knowing that you still have a place to sleep.  For the time being, if that’s the only place you have to stay, it’s home.

Thanks for getting back so quickly :)

I’ll need to check the date that client moved back to her mum and whether all this happened in one AP or whether she was in one of the hostels/hotels at the end of an AP.

That case law is super helpful even if the dates don’t quite work out for this client. 

Thanks again and have a great weekend

S

Can you say why the Homeless Application was refused?

There are 5 tests: Eligibility, Priority Need, Homeless or threatened, Intentionality, Local Connection.

Which one was it?

Hi Martin

I don’t know. This all happened 2 years ago (seems like it took ages for Statement of Reasons to be produced). Client is now in stable accommodation. I’ve told her that I’m surprised she wasn’t temporarily housed back in 2017 but not gone into it in any more depth and have advised her that if she is unhappy about this she needs to go through the complaints/LGO process, ideally with some form of specialist advice.

Do you think it makes a difference to the benefits issue? At the moment I’ve told her that I feel that if my advice was to be that she has merit for an UT appeal I’m probably not able to deal with it myself as potentially one issue that may arise is whether errors were made in how her homelessness application was dealt with and if that were the case then a conflict arises given that I’m employed by the same LA.

I don’t really see how the approach to the homelessness application could impact the decision on benefit issues. I think Martin is probably just raising it as it sensibly ought to have been looked at (although by the looks of things, that is a ship which has sailed).

In the first instance, its a case of going back to the dates - and specifically the circumstances on the last date of each AP - to figure out if housing costs were hypothetically payable at all. If everything happened within a single AP so that - at the end of that AP - your client had no housing costs, that is really the end of it. But if your client ended one or more APs in hotels, then it might be that a further challenge is worth the candle.

I didn’t realise it was that far back. I was hoping that the decision would show your client was at least verified homeless, rather than being turned down as not being in priority need. If your client was homeless and is being refused benefits, for staying in bed and breakfasts and hostels, to me that is a serious issue. 

If the LA said your client was not homeless as the client actually had a home, that’s another issue.

The DWP are meant to be providing additional help for claimants that are homeless.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-and-homeless-people

If you follow their own guidance on a homeless persons UC journey here it envisages someone who occasionally stays in a hostel.   

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/835699/quick-guide-to-universal-credit-homeless.pdf

Good luck.

Thanks all 😊