Transitional protection

I have a client who was homeless and on legacy benefits placed in temporary accommodation housing benefit was applied for but he never brought the identification in that was requested so the housing benefit never went into payment.  He then moved into a friends due to his health and for her to care for him.  He had been under offer for a council property for months through the rapid rehousing scheme.  He decided that he did not want to go through the 5 week assessment period with his legacy benefit stopping he wanted to get onto uc before he moved as he suffers with mental health and the whole process would have been too much as well as moving.

He had his first assessment and they protected his transitional transfer of his benefits as he had income guarantee and severe disability payment on the legacy benefits.  The first month of uc he was still in his friends home and therefore did not need to claim the housing element.

He signed for his property a week after getting his firs uc they then took off him the transitional protection as he was getting the housing element and they have said he is on more money now than he was before, but he is not as the personal elements and the extras were more than he gets now he has lost over £300 a month

I cannot get any help to challenge this i have tried they say its policy and called erosion CAB say they can’t help our local disability support network say they can’t help surely this is not right that he loses so much money

Broadly speaking that does sound correct. The SDP transitional element is eroded by the increase of another element or when another element (except childcare costs) is awarded.

The only thing I can think of is to see if there are grounds for a late revision of the HB decision, if the evidence requested can now be provided and also challenging the UC decision on grounds of unlawful discrimination. CPAG have produced a template letter covering this scenario. CPAG website says this argument hadn’t been tested as on Feb 2022 and I’m not aware of any precedent though I’m sure someone more knowledgeable can correct me if I’m wrong on that.

https://askcpag.org.uk/content/207613/erode-to-nowhere
https://cpag.org.uk/welfare-rights/template-letters

I wouldn’t recommend using that template in this scenario.  The template is intended for someone with a UC transitional element eroded as a result of moving from temporary accommodation (where rent covered by HB) into accommodation where the rent is covered by UC HCE.  Those aren’t the facts set out in Katrina’s post

Yes sorry have just re-read and seen there would be a break between the 2 claims anyway.

Fresh in my mind as I am looking at a similar case in our team. Do you know if this argument has been/is being tested elsewhere?

I’m aware of those arguments having been successful at FTT.  And, last I heard, there’s likely to be a UT decision - though CPAG is not involved