tax credit claim change sufficient to end entitlement and force move to UC

client claiming TCs as a single person.

Her partner moved in with her and she told HMRC. They closed her single claim and told her to claim UC because she was in a full service area.

I couldn’t get a comprehensible explanation out of them but the person on the intermediaries helpline was adamant that the only way forward for her was to claim UC. . 

Is this right? The CPAG seems to say that the single claim is closed in these circumstances and the claimant must make a new claim with her partner. It is this new claim which presumably is held to trigger UC.

Single to joint doesn’t work like that with the legacy benefits—she carried on having entitlement to ESA/HB— but it does with TCs—have I got that right?

Yes change in status from single to couple or couple to single requires new tax credit claim. As such, if in a full service area, unless you are making a new claim with 3 or more children (until 1 February 2019) or one of you is over PC age (this may also change next year), you can’t make a new tax credits claim. Choice then is to stay just on your remaining legacy benefits with the drop of income that involves or make a claim for UC which if entitled will then result in the other legacy benefits being terminated from the day before UC entitlement starts - so no choice really.

For the DWP administered means-tested benefits, they normally aren’t claimed jointly but if you as the claimant have a partner then they are paid at a higher rate. So if you move from single to couple or couple to single, your claim doesn’t end but the amount you are paid does. As no new claim is needed, that means you can continue to get them even in a full service area, until you either make a claim for UC because you have to or want to (natural migration) or the DWP transfer you (managed migration - coming next July under current plans).