Apologies for length of post.
I have a client who is a pensioner (no Pension Credit) and who claimed CTB (owns the home) 3 years ago. He received partial CTB until this year when they hit him with a £1800 overpayment.
CTB say that he failed to include his wife on the claim.
Client says that he included her name. He did not include her financial details because he does not know what her income and savings are. They live in the same house, but separately (separate sleeping arrangements, separate financial arrangements etc.)
Client admitted she was his partner when completing the form. He states that he made it clear that he could not give her financial details while completing the form, but when asked how this was made clear is not actually sure he said anything about it. The form is structured in such a way that it asks questions like "does either partner have a bank account ?" and then expects you to list them...
As far as this went it seemed like a weak case. The council is wrong in saying he failed to disclose a partner but there certainly appears to be an overpayment, and it seemed likely to be recoverable. Client has admitted he has a partner so this would be hard to challenge, he has almost certainly failed to disclose her income, and we cannot ask for offsetting because she is still not willing to provide her income. I decided we would write and ask for a copy of the form and decide whether there are appeal grounds when we see this.
(Complicated by the fact that if even if his wife is NOT his partner, she is a joint owner of the house and should have been counted either as a joint tax payer or as a non-dependant, so he would still have been overpaid)
Then I looked at the form. The form asks a claimant to include a partner, and gives the following definition : "By partner, we mean someone of the opposite sex you are married to or live with as if you are married" (Newer versions apparently include this plus same sex partners/civil partnerships - our forms are still old stock).
However the actual definition of a married partner is of course : "married and living in the same household".
(I do have some sympathy for the council, in that they have attempted to explain things in a simpler fashion - but this is just wrong)
Now my client may be somewhat confused about the claim, (he is 88 and has never made a previous benefit claim)but according to their definition he HAD to include his wife.
I am hoping to argue that all following errors stemmed from this - he had to put her name on the form, but because they have separate households he could provide her financial details. There was also no way he could correctly include her as a non-dependant because the form only goes on to ask for "other people" who live there...Basically anyone in his, unusual, position could not submit a correct claim on the form as provided.
I am therefore trying to argue that the whole overpayment stems from an official error - this being the incorrect definition on the form. (And crossing my fingers the form hasn't changed that much in 3 years, the council seem to think it hasn't)
Does anyone have any experience of similar cases ? Does anyone think this has any chance of success, or am I over reaching ? Is it common to have such incorrect advice given directly on forms ?
Victoria J.
|