We have a claimant who is 64 and receives DLA low rate care only. The claimant is going to be 65 in one months time. We have received renewal forms as the award ends in August, but we have already requested a supersession as the claimants care and mobility needs have increased to the extent that they should qualify for High rate of both Care and Mobility.
What is the situation if the renewal claim (effective from August after the 65th birthday) is decided before the claim for supersession?
What is the situation if the supersession claim is refused and appealed against and the renewal claim is decided before the appeal hearing of the supersession claim?
What is the situation if both decision are appealed and the renewal appeal is decided before the supersession appeal?

In situations such as this if we are talking only a matter of a short time between the two sets of claim forms I have requested that the information provided for the supersession also be treated as the information for the renewal claim. This request has always been accepted and thus avoids any of the situations you mention.

I have a similar query about the way supersessions should be treated, and would be grateful for any advice.
I completed a renewal DLA claim form for a tenant, who had been receiving LR care and LR mobility. Having gone over the form it was clear that she should be receiving HR care and as such wrote a covering letter with the renewal form requesting that the highest rate be considered, this was a couple of months prior to the renewal date (Feb '05.
The decision on the renewal claim was that the award remained unchanged from the renewal date - 8/04/05.That decision was appealed against and after her hearing today she was awarded HR care, but only from 8/04/05. I know I can ask the DBU to consider the covering letter that I sent in with the renewal form (as they clearly didn't) but since the decision was to keep the award the same, if they changed the date of the decision I assume the award would be the same regardless? or do they know have a duty to change this as well?

Any advice appreciated.

Suspect that they would argue that the letter was really a covering letter with the renewal form rather than a specific request for a supersession of the award prior to renewal.

You could argue that if you were stating that was the situation at the time that the form was completed and that the pre-qualifying period had been served, it may be worth running it past them that any reasonable decision-maker would have taken it as a supersession request from the date they received the letter.

Only other problem I could see would be that it could have been raised at the Tribunal that there was an issue as to whether it was a renewal claim or supersession request and the Tribunal could have looked at the issue of the start date of the higher award.