We've been warned by a refugee service that they have signposted someone to us and we don't yet have the full story - but I'm trying to get some thoughts in order in advance.

Refugee is having problems with an IB-JSA claim over the house owned in the home country. Can't contact the authorities there for evidence of valuation - doesn't want to give present location away. It might be that the value would be small or nil, but showing that will be difficult. I'm contemplating a different approach:

When a refugee flees s/he abandons everything - including their possessions. They might well entertain the hope of reclaiming their property when the situation changes - indeed I can well understand that it might be psychologically important to keep insisting that s/he owns this or that property at home - it is part of their identity. But does this hope amount to a capital asset? Is it a future interest of the type that is specifically disregarded by Sch10 para 5? The notes in Wood on capital say that the first question has to be whether the claimant actually owns the asset in question, and that this might not be as simple as it sounds. I want to argue that a refugee in this position no longer has any effenctive ownership of the house in the home country, but I haven't found anything in the legislation or case law to help relating specifically to property abandoned by refugees in flight. I can't believe that the issue hasn't been considered before - can anyone point me in the direction of any cases? Or offer any other thoughts.

A glass of feuerzangenbowle - http://german.about.com/library/blfeuerzangenb.htm -
to anyone who can help (but you'll have to be in Sheffield to drink it...)

Just an initial thought as I am off out. The home may be impossible to valuate. Have a look at R(JSA) 1/02.

Having a capital asset is all well and good - but it is only an "asset" if it is realisable - ie, turned into hard cash.

If you client is a refugee then is he not fleeing from a State which is inherently unstable, in which case the questions to be asked are:

1. Is there documentary evidence of ownership?
2. What would be the value of such a property in such a country?
3. Even if there were a buyer in that country, would he be allowed to have the money paid into this country?

For example, a few years ago (10 +) South Africa's Goverment would not permit the export of cash at all, and therefore any property or bank accts you held there were in real terms worthless outside of SA.

It's a slightly different point, but I can confirm that a few years ago when I was doing probate, the Revenue readily accepted that assets held in a country from which the proceeds of sale cannot be imported to the UK have no effective value. Mind you, the rules are a bit different for inheritance tax, but this seems reasonable in benefits law. It is not impossible that the property might have been confiscated by the government anyway.

There is a view that arguing a future interest rather than beneficial ownership might damage future rights to that property.

Lots of work has been done by lawyers and accountants (mostly in the USA) about holocaust survivors' rights to their assets which were seized by the Nazis who used spurious legal mechanisms (as well as force)to divest Jewish owners of their property. Part of the problem of restitution has been that many survivors and their families accepted the new owners for many years and then face an uphill struggle to prove ownership and return of what is still legally theirs.

I know this may be slightly tangential to your query, but it is something to bear in mind and another reason for arguing about minimal valuation rather than future interest. Also how about disregards when taking steps to dispose of property?

On holocaust assets and legal issues, Google threw up this link: www2.lib.uchicago.edu/~llou/nazigold.html

The value in *that* country is irrelevant, it's the value to a willing buyer in *this* country that matters.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

The signpostee has not (yet?) shown up at our drop-in; and I don't know whether this means that DWP have decided to pay, either on the basis of a low valuation of the asset or that she doesn't possess it any longer. I was exploring the idea that you can argue that a refugee doesn't possess what they've left behind, because the issue as it was put to me was that getting any sort of valuation - whether based on the local market there and transfer of money here, or the value in the UK market if there is a formal currency transfer prohibition (and I haven't yet checked whether or not there is a prohibition) - would involve some contact with the home country; that this contact risks alerting people there to the refugee's current location; and that she was afraid of the possible consequences of that for her and her family. I was wondering whether it was possible to sidestep the whole valuation question by arguing the possession point, and this still intrigues me even though it doesn't relate to a live case.

Thanks again for your contributions.

I could never see it as a future interest anyway - it relates predominantly to interests in remainder under a trust, or interests in land following the expiry of a lease or grant of right of occupation which you did not create yourself. It's an important disregard since these interests do have a genuine market value and there is a market in them. So if your grandfather left his house on trust for your mother for life, and then for you on your mother's death, and she is 83 and in very poor health, you might be very glad of this disregard!