× Search rightsnet
Search options

Where

Benefit

Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction

From

to

Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Housing costs  →  Thread

Long stay hospital patients: resetting the 52 week period by visits home

Euan
forum member

Welfare rights - Social Work Services, Glasgow

Send message

Total Posts: 5

Joined: 29 June 2010

I have a few long stay hospital cases which are coming up to the 52 week mark and so will no longer be treated as occupying the dwelling as their home unless the period of absence is reset by a visit home.  Housing Benefit have told the social worker for one of them that day passes don’t really count, as classed as still resident in the hospital - the only thing that could (and even this is not guaranteed) lead to a continuation of HB is if he had overnight passes - what they would have to do is let housing benefit know of the dates of any overnights and provide as much detail as possible, making it clear that this is a break from hospital. 

Does anybody have experience of trying to reset the temporary absence clock for a long stay hospital patient based on a visit home for a few hours?  How did housing benefit respond? If it went to appeal what arguments were used and what was the outcome?

My take on the caselaw/guidance:
Burt (R v Penwith District Council Ex parte Catherine Thomas Burt) found that the 52 week time limits refer to absences which are continuous and that any return home “however short” means that the absence has ended.  Eligibility can only be terminated ”... on the basis that the claimant does not normally occupy that dwelling as his or her home and that his or her absences are accordingly not in any real sense temporary.  It is regulation 5(1) that enshrines the governing principle, namely, that a person is to be treated as satisfying the requirement of occupation only in respect of a dwelling “normally occupied as his home”

CH/3014/2005 considers Burt and finds that the claimant is “occupying the property as the home” even if a visit is for a “very short period”.  What is necessary is that the visit is more than de minimus. Just visiting to collecting the mail is given as an example of a visit that is too trivial to count.

R(H) 9/05 considers that the word “normally” in terms of ‘normally occupied as the home’ is used to deal with cases where there is more than one possible dwelling which might be treated as the claimant’s home, and is not directed to any question of length of occupation of a single dwelling.

The DWP Guidance (3.460) inserts the phrase “genuine re-occupation of the home” to end the absence.  It does not explicitly say that there needs to be an overnight stay but does say that “a stay lasting only a few hours may not be acceptable but one that lasts at least 24 hours may be acceptable.  It all depends on the facts of the case. If the stay is not considered genuine, the temporary absence will not have stopped.“

In temporary absence cases ‘normal occupation’ has already been established and so in my mind the question becomes whether a period of absence has been ended by a period of presence and the bar for that is set at any visit that is more than de minimus, which is a lower threshold than “genuine re-occupation”.

cheers

HB Anorak
forum member

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

Send message

Total Posts: 2895

Joined: 12 March 2013

You could also look at 2013 UKUT 65 AAC which dealt with a night shelter and whether it could be a dwelling occupied as someone’s home.  It might be useful to distinguish the facts of that unsuccessful appeal: the long term right to use the home in your case, the fact that furniture and belongings remain there.  These connections make a place ones home more than a room in a night shelter that you only have the right to use once.