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Temporary to permanent accommodation

Timothy Seaside
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Housing services - Arun District Council

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Joined: 20 September 2018

Does anybody have a quick answer to this, please?

My client is getting UC, and had housing costs paid by HB while in (council) temporary accommodation. He moved from TA into (council) permanent in the middle of his UC AP and notified the change of circumstances. This means that UC pay housing costs from the start of the AP. Does it mean that the HB he received since the start of the AP up until the change of circs was retrospectively an overpayment? And if it was, is it recoverable?

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

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I don’t think so.  The provision that kills his HB award is Reg 5 of the Transitional Provisions Regs: no dual entitlement to HB and UC, drafted so as to make UC “trump” HB.  But with an exception where the HB is in respect of temp or specified acc, which it was.  So it is possible for the UC housing element to overlap with the tail end of the HB award.

Reg 8 doesn’t apply here because it isn’t a new UC claim.

Timothy Seaside
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Housing services - Arun District Council

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That’s great, thanks.

ZoeHBF
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Welfare and Housing, Helen Bamber Foundation (London)

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Hello - I don’t have a response to this, but have a similar query if that’s OK?

One of our clients moved from temporary accommodation to permanent council accommodation the first week of April (she was in receipt of UC for living costs already and HB for TA). We only found out she had moved when she sent us a letter about rent arrears, as she had not updated UC of change of circs nor HB, so we then informed HB and UC of the change in address and rent.

Her rent according to her tenancy agreement is gross £133.76 pw(£98.61 net rent + £35.15 service charges). Her housing benefit is now in payment at £124.03 pw (but says that her total weekly rent is £138.34, which is not what her tenancy agreement says).

Since she updated UC that she is no longer in temporary accommodation but in permanent council housing (but did write on her journal to say that HB is paying her rent), she has also just been paid her housing costs by UC, so she has definitely been overpaid by someone or another!

The housing costs from UC are £555.27 pm (£427.31 as rent, £127.96 in service charges). To me, though my brain was not made for these calculations, means UC have paid her the equivalent of £128.14 gross rent pw, which is less than what her tenancy agreement says is the rent pw, but more than what she receives from HB pw at the moment.

Can anyone help me understand this? From the posts in this discussion already, the UC award for housing ‘trumps’ the HB award, which is fine, though obviously now need to try and make sure that her HB stops to avoid recovery of overpayments, is that correct? But what I don’t understand is why the amounts of rent from her tenancy agreement, HB notice and UC statement are all different, given that the landlord is Islington Council and they have had to verify the costs for HB and UC! Does anyone have any advice on trying to navigate this, without the client ending up being left to pay for avoidable overpayments?

Best wishes

Zoe

Elliot Kent
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Shelter

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The difference between tenancy agreement and UC looks to be the impact of two rent free-weeks. £133.76 * 50 / 12 = £557.33. I don’t know the others.

I would have thought that your client should put in writing to the LA that they are concerned that they appear to be being overpaid HB and should invite them to investigate and end the award.