Another SDP gateway question

Cl is a single person and has lived alone in a variety of multi occ houses for some while. He is on IR ESA and should have had the SDP included since early 2020. He applied for this but was refused as it seems that there was some confusion between who lived in the same house as opposed to who else was in his household.
He has sent in some further docs to get the SDP decision re-considered.

He has moved to a different area and now needs to claim housing costs. If he was getting the SDP he would of course be able to claim HB but it is fairly unlikely that his SDP will be in place before the gateway closes on the 27th.

He is very reluctant to claim UC and we are wondering whether he could claim HB on the grounds that his SDP is pending and that the decision on the HB claim could be stayed until there is a decision on the SDP.

Any thoughts or observations gratefully recieved

I would suggest he put a claim in for HB asap ( def before 27 jan) and advise he is on ESA and awaiting a reconsideration/ appeal about his SPD.
the LA may well give a nil qualifier/ ineleigible to claim decision - but that decision would be open to any time revision if his SDP is awarded and bacldated to include the date he claimed HB

Yes, if the client is dead set against claiming UC then I think this should work. As you say, the best option would be to discuss it with HB and ask them to park the claim while the SDP issue is sorted out. If you get a good HB officer then they should be able to see the force in what you are saying and I would hope they would agree to do this. But even if you apply for HB and are turned down, you should be able to get the decision revised once the SDP is awarded.

Obviously you want to be absolutely sure they should have been getting SDP.