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Service Charges and Pension Credit
Hi all,
One of my clients lives in Sheltered accommodation and owns her flat in there. Her service charges are quite considerable (£400 plus per month) and she was recently getting £62 per week extra in her pension credit to help with this. This equated to the eligible services for housing benefit amount.
She obviously can’t claim HB as she has no rent liability but I would have thought that it would be correct that pension credit would pay the same amount towards services as HB would.
They have just wrote to her to tell her that they will only pay £35 per week towards the service charges but could not tell me why when I called them.
I have scoured the internet trying to find out how pension credits calculate service charges but can’t find anything. My interpretation of the regs is that the rules are the same as for HB so I don’t see why there is a difference. I have submitted a MR on my clients behalf but wondered if anyone here could shed any light on this?
As she’s not able to claim HB, I’m not entirely sure where the comparison between service charges under HB and PC arises?
We cover service charges briefly in our factsheet Pension Credit, see section 5.3:
If you have to pay service charges as a condition of living in your home,your appropriate minimum guarantee can include help towards some ofthese. Reasonable charges for the following are eligible
* services for the provision of adequate accommodation including somewarden and caretaker services, gardens, lifts, entry phones, portering,rubbish removal, TV and radio relay charges
* laundry facilities like a laundry room in a sheltered housing scheme butnot personal laundry services
* cleaning of communal areas and windows
* minor repairs and maintenance(notmajorrepairs and improvements-you maygethelp withinterest on aloanto pay forthese)
* home insurance if it has to be paid under the terms of the lease.
Service charges for community/emergency alarm systems, personal care and support services are not covered.
As such, it’s entirely possible that some of the personal care and support services that may be provided under the terms of her accommodation would not be eligible service charges, whether considered under PC or HB regulations.
You can request a breakdown from the Pension Service and see whether there are any that are arguable for inclusion? Alternatively, you can check whether the local authority might make a contribution separately by requesting a needs assessment from social services?
You might also want to look at section 5 of our factsheet Buying retirement housing which looks at the landlord’s responsibilities and duties when levying service charges upon people in accommodation like that of your client.
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your reply. I’ve since delved into the PC regs and schedule II paragraph 13 implies that they use the same rules as HB
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/1792/schedule/II/made
I’m guessing from what you’re saying is the Pension Service may deem these charges to be unreasonable?
Hi Paul,
Thanks for your reply. I’ve since delved into the PC regs and schedule II paragraph 13 implies that they use the same rules as HB
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2002/1792/schedule/II/made
I’m guessing from what you’re saying is the Pension Service may deem these charges to be unreasonable?
You’ve answered your own question - both HB and PC have service charges which are eligible for assistance and service charges which aren’t.
No my question is do HB and PC use the SAME criteria when deciding what service charges are eligible? All my digging is indicating that this is the case and I was hoping for confirmation as I’m not 100% certain in my interpretation of the relevant legislation. If I’m wrong and the criteria does differ, I’d be very interested in delving into how they differ.
The PC regs in sch.II, para.13 refer you to HB regs to identify the ineligble service charges, so broadly speaking, they’re the same.
Cheers. That was the conclusion I’d came to also. The breakdown of Service charges state £62 eligible for HB which is what PC were paying. Then out of nowhere, mid financial year they randomly decide they are only paying £35 per week. MR submitted and I’ve requested a breakdown of how they came to this figure but they have told me the turnaround time will be 28 working days
No worries, I think I can recall us having a similar case referred to us for advice earlier this year for PC and service charges. We weren’t aware of any specific changes here but haven’t heard anything further back from the adviser concerned unfortunately.
Pension Service must be able to identify the grounds for superseding the award if you ask them, which in turn should lead to the provision of information as to what element(s) of the service charges are suddenly ineligible for asssitance. That’s kind of their job, so if you encounter difficulties, I’d suggest lodging a complaint whilst pursuing the MR.