Does client need to claim UC?

My client had a local authority property and purchased a house in 2018, which he subsequently moved into. He was advised to hand the keys back for the rental property but didn’t. He then decided to move back into the rental property in July this year to be closer to family/friends. He has now been hit with an overpayment of HB which he has accepted. However, he’s been told that he now needs to claim Universal Credit for the rent (the owned property is disregarded). My questions is, as the HB award continued (rightly or wrongly), are the LA correct in advising him to claim UC or should the HB claim continue? My thoughts are that as he didn’t have a valid HB claim, he must claim UC.

If the decision to terminate his HB was made after he became re-entitled to HB, then the LA should have made a closed-period supersession, and HB can and should continue.

Thanks Charles. I’ve just realised that the cl has moved back into the area (the property he has been living at was a different council). Does that affect it or would it still be a closed period supersession?

The question is whether he was entitled to the HB he was receiving specifically on the date of the decision to end the award, regardless of any intervening period of non-entitlement.

If he is only disqualified from HB due to being absent from the property but then he is occupying the property on the decision date, then a closed period supersession would be appropriate. It doesn’t really matter where he has been in the interim.

The reason why moving between council areas is raised in these conversations is because if you move to a rented property in another council area you would previously have needed to make a new HB claim with the new council which is now impossible - but this isn’t a consideration in your case because there was obviously no need to claim help with the rent on the owned property.

But that raises the other angle to this which is whether the capital value of the owned property excludes your client from benefit altogether?

Thanks Elliot. He moved back in to the property on 6 July 2020 and the decision was taken in September. He has therefore been hit with an overpayment from 2018 to 20 September 2020 (decision date). So the overpayment should only run until 5 July.

The property is disregarded so won’t count as capital.