client has appealed against refusal of housing costs on grounds that mortgage for purchase of home was taken out before relevant time, but it turns out that the claim in may 07 was in fact backdated to Feb 07, when he retired, placing purchase date in March 2007 firmly with the relevant period, for refusal of help.
there's a commissioner's decision CPC/3226/2005 which finds in favour of the SEc of State's argument that although there can be no entitlement without claim, entitlement on a claim could be established retrospectively - in that case claimant took out loan well before claiming PC, but requested and obtained 1 years back-dating, catching the loan date within the period. there's a similar IS decision in CIS/0088/2008.
the only thing distinguishing this case is that client did not request backdating and it seems to have been automatic. does anyone know if they would do this? client doesn't seem to know anything about backdating, but if there's a form they send out asking for signature to confirm he wants his claim backdated, he might well have signed it...i'm dubious that even if we could establish that he did not claim earlier, the SoS would restrict himself in pension credit cases to 'entitlement is dependant on a claim' in the interpretation of 'entitled to' in para 4(4) of Sched 3.
If anyone is familiar with the procedures, it would be very helpful, but my main purpose in posting is for colleagues' opinions or advice on whether i should advise client to withdraw appeal, or not? i'd be very grateful for views...
i should add that disputing a point of law isn't exactly a quick enough fix for his problem - how he managed to obtain a £107K mortgage on retiring beats me... he tells me that the completion was delayed by 4 weeks by the lender over a query, he was unsure what exavtly, relating to his occ. pension (which is a modest £140 pcm) and also that he did not obtain financial advice from a financial adviser or his solicitor prior to completion.
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