Good afternoon all, need some advice please.

A non-dep turned 18 in May and has not been working or claiming any benefits until 22 September 06, he's now on JSA so no non-dep charge has applied from Monday after.

The LA applied the highest non-dep charge and have written to my client to try and get info but she did not respond so the highest charge remained.

I saw her in October 06 and have now got the non-dep charge removed and I did a supporting letter asking that the lowest non-dep charge be applied for May to Sept, the LA has refused because she failed to respond to requests for info regarding the non-dep.

I'm sure I can remember something that the highest charge cannot be applied if they are not in work, now the LA have the info should they apply the lowest charge or does the fact she failed to respond overide it.

Any ideas.

There are really two views on this.

1) The LA can’t make a higher deduction without some evidence that the non-dep is working. Therefore they should always have made the lower deduction.

2) When your client did not respond to the LAs request for information they were entitled to draw an “adverse inference” from her failure to respond and adopt the higher non-dependent deduction.


I have to say that, in the face of no response from the claimant, my LA would probably take a higher non-dependent deduction, but would be prepared to retrospectively remove it when the information was provided.

I certainly think it would be worth an appeal.

I'm thinking that too, I realise she failed to respond but I don't believe they can now continue to use the highest non-dep charge when he wasn't working and the regulations seem to support that I think.

Suzanne

You are right and the LA shoudl revise for official error, the error being applying the highest deduction by makeing a determination of fact that he was working with no evidence to support it

See CH/2324/2003

Thanks, I'll give it a go