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Mixed age couple and staying on HB
Couple where she is on ESA -CB and he has reached SRP. She claims HB for them as a couple.
Can she just do a change of circs with his SRP income and stay on HB (rather than UC)?
Not unless there is a drafting flaw in the No 31 Order (as many believe there is: see for example here). But if the Order does what it is trying to do, HB terminates when the award migrates from the working age HB Regs to the SPC-age HB Regs, which will happen on the facts you have provided.
Depending how much rent they pay, there might not be any point claiming UC with both ESA(c) and SRP as income, and maybe private pension as well.
Not unless there is a drafting flaw in the No 31 Order (as many believe there is: see for example here). But if the Order does what it is trying to do, HB terminates when the award migrates from the working age HB Regs to the SPC-age HB Regs, which will happen on the facts you have provided.
Depending how much rent they pay, there might not be any point claiming UC with both ESA(c) and SRP as income, and maybe private pension as well.
It would be good to see someone test whether Charles is right about the drafting error by appealing a HB termination in these circumstances.
However, when you say there might not be any point in claiming UC, that isn’t always advisable in these cases - if the UC claim is made whilst the ESA award remains live, then the LCW/RA component should be carried over automaticlaly into the UC entitlement and they can get paid the 2-week HB run-on as well. They can’t just sit there continuing to let the HB award carry on because there’s been a change of circumstances (ESA stopping and SRP starting) that should be reported to the LA and thus they’ll look to shut HB award anyway. If they don’t, they’re getting overpaid.
Good point about the 2-week run-on: it is worth making a pre-emptive UC claim <2w before the date on which HB would have terminated and extending the HB award. The optimum date is the Sunday of the week in which the older partner reaches SPC age.
OP seems to be past tense so too late for them
OP seems to be past tense so too late for them
Yes, that’s what I thought might be the case.
Thanks for responses.
Tenants HB has been suspended and we think they have had a letter from HB asking for details of his SRP.
I can’t understand why, if the regs are as above, the HB doesn’t just terminate when he reached SPA. Amount of SRP appears irrelevant if HB stops at SPA.
We are trying to clarify with the tenant what their HB letter actually says but we can access certain HB systems and their claim currently shows as suspended rather than ended.
Surely if HB is overpaid due to a processing error it is official error and tenants can’t reasonably be expected to know??
Certainly arguable but with HB overpayments, there’s always the added barrier pf showing that the claimant could not have reasonably be expected to realise that an overpayment was being made (which I think is probably also strongly arguable given the inherent complexity of these changes).