IS 17yo relevant education living alone

Hello all

I have a difficult scenario for a client and am wondering if someone can advise/help me.

I am a Financial Wellbeing Advisor for a Housing Association. About two months ago a 17 yo girl was allocated one of our social housing properties through the Local Authority’s Choice-Based Lettings.

Her circumstances were that she was living with her mother and siblings as a child, but a few years ago her mother defaulted on mortgage, subsequently rented privately for a few years but was evicted due to arrears. The client, her mother, her brother and a sister were therefore homeless, and registered for rehousing with the Local Authority, however given the mother’s previous arrears, was given low priority on the housing register and basically given little hope of finding somewhere to live.

The sister moved out of the family unit because she had a child and partner. The client, mother and brother moved in with another older sister of the client, who has two children, in a two-bed property. They were therefore vastly overcrowding this home.

The Local Authority advised them that the client would have more hope of finding somewhere to live because she was old enough to hold her own tenancy and didn’t have the arrears issue hanging over her head to restrict her priority. They advised client that she would have entitlement to benefit to help pay for the housing. Client informs me she went to the CAB to get confirmation, and they confirmed it, copying a page of the CPAG handbook to show proof.

Client therefore accepted offer of a one-bed flat with us, and made claims for Income Support and Housing Benefit. However, she has been refused Income Support on the basis of lack of eligibility. At this point I should say that I believe she is in ‘relevant education’, having been in a hairdressing course last academic year and is due to start an animal care college course this academic year. These are full-time and non-advanced.

The way I have read the rules is that you can qualify for IS while in relevant education as a 17yo, if you have to live away from your parents because you are (a) estranged from them, (b) in physical or moral danger, or (c) there is serious risk to physical or mental health.

DWP have decided she is not entitled to IS. Initially this was because mother was still getting Child Benefit, so she stopped that and they reclaimed. They then refused it again, stating that while they accepted she was in relevant education, there was no evidence of estrangement.

I see no prospect of arguing against that, because clearly mother and daughter and interacting well. Mother put herself down as guarantor (required to be a family member due to client’s age) which DWP have seen, mother is supporting emotionally, but not able to support financially (despite being guarantor). However DWP do not seem to have considered the other parts of the rule.

I therefore wondered if there is any prospect of arguing there is risk to physical or mental health or physical or moral danger based on the fact that she cannot live with her mother because her mother cannot offer anywhere to live and where they are living temporarily is vastly overcrowded? Is there any case law relevant to this or has anyone experienced any precedent?

Is there any other advice anyone can offer also?

Thank you for any support that can be provided.

Not a huge amount of help I am afraid, but I had a client in a virtually identical situation and advised her to lodge appeal on that basis (serious risk to her health due to overcrowding) which she did with the assistance of her support worker, who was aware of the background and could provide letter confirming why client was forced to move out. I invited her to return for further advice when the bundle was produced but client failed to stay in touch. I think (though not 100% certain) that the decision was revised in her favour at reconsideration stage so I’d certainly say it is worth a punt.

Thank you for your reply 1964. I am glad to find it is not an entirely unique situation!

I have found evidence from a counsellor to confirm my client has mental health issues and her previous overcrowded living conditions were escalating those issues, so I believe she would fit under the risk to mental health under that.

As such I am now pretty confident of getting this sorted, hopefully at recon stage, and I shall post the result here when I get it so other advisors can see it in the future.

I know it’s probably too late to help now but what happened to this family is unacceptable.  Your client should have been assessed by the LA under the Children Act.  The wider family’s needs could then have been taken into account on the back of that.  This kind of failure is fairly widespread due to housing departments not knowing enough about this issue or the lack of joint working between housing and social services in some LA’s.

An update: We were successful!

Income Support had only assessed the client’s claim on the basis of estrangement, I think because the client misunderstood the advice given to them and thought that was the basis under which they would be entitled, and so quoted this. The DM did not consider any other exceptions where they should have done.

They initially refused to look at it again without it being a formal appeal because they had already done a reconsideration on the back of a phone conversation, but after I pointed out I had new evidence they relented, accepted it by fax, and then revised it the following work day.

This was on the basis that the client’s mental health was at risk by living with her parents. I was fortunate I had evidence of this, I’m not sure how we would have fared without it even though it would still be arguable.

Thanks for your help.

Nevip: I’m not too up on the Housing Register process but evidence I found in the Housing File seemed to suggest that the family were given higher priority due to the risk to my client’s health, but other factors regarding the manner in which the mother was evicted must have counteracted that. I guess they feel they discharged their duty by advising my client to get her own housing.

Good outcome but, in my view, the LA was still in breach of it’s s17 Children Act duty.