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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Housing costs  →  Thread

A7/2018 UC underlying entitlement and DHP

Dan_Manville
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Mental health & welfare rights service - Wolverhampton City Council

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Joined: 15 October 2012

Hi all

I might have missed something; I’ve only got my 17/18 Findlay to hand however…

The new circular tells us that provision is made for underlying entitlement to UC for people in specified accomodation so that they can secure entitlement to DHPs.

UC claimants living in specified accommodation or temporary accommodation will be treated as having an underlying entitlement to UC housing costs to ensure they remain able to apply for Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) should they require additional assistance for any gap in housing costs support

Looking a reg 2 of the DFA regulations, receipt of HB is still there as a quailifying condition for receipt of HB so is this Underlying Entitlement really necessary where there’s no solution to the Supported Accomodation/Housing Costs quandary mooted or is it an omen?

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

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I think the intention is to cover cases where the claimant has moved into specified/temporary while already on UC and as a result has lost a general needs housing element for the whole month.  The logic runs like this:

- for UC purposes they are treated as if they live in specified/temp from the start of the month
- that is the thing that is preventing them from having a housing element for the whole month
- that in turn allows a DHP to be paid
- they could not get a DHP the old-fashioned way because HB wont start until they actually occupy the specified/temp acc in real life