joint JSA claim by EEA-A8 couple, wrong partner makes claim

Clients make a joint JSA claim. He makes the claim but decision is that he has not completed the required 12 months Registered work and the claim fails.

His wife however has completed the required 12 months and therefore would qualify for JSA

I have advised her to make a new joint claim with her name as the main claimant and to ask for this to be backdated to the date of her partners claim as they did not know it would make any difference.

Are there any previous cases or decisions that I could rely on.

I think this must have happened before.

Thanks

How long ago was his application? JSA cannot be backdated more than 3 months under any circumstances. And it can only be backdated even that much if one of the specified reasons in Reg 19(5) of the Claims and Payments Regs applies. Ignorance is no excuse at all.

Your best bet is either misleading advice from JCP staff which led them to think the other partner could not claim, or language difficulties: but in the latter case you would have to show that it was not reasonably practicable to get help with making the claim.

How long was the gap between the wife stopping work and the husband making the claim to JSA? Presumably the wife was also looking for work? I’m just wondering if there is an argument that the wife is a worker (or retains worker status on the basis of involuntary unemployment and has now registered with the employment office as looking for work etc?). If the wife is a worker, then Reg 2(6)(b)(i) of the 2004 Accession Regs may allow you to appeal the initial refusal on the basis that as the husband is a family member of a worker, he is not an accession state national who is required to register and that fact that he has not completed 12 months of registered work is irrelevant?