Posted by Alison_Morgan of Gloucestershire Housing Association on 16-Jan-04 at 11:51 AM

NB - post copied across from old forum

Could anyone out there help - one of our tenants has recently split with her partner who moved out on a Sunday and then started work on the next day. Her partner had been claiming Income Support for them both as a couple for over a year, but she was the claimant for HB purposes. She thought she should get an extended payment but this was refused because she was not the Income Support claimant, and her partner was not resident on the day she started work. Housing Benefit has been cancelled from the Sunday i.e. the day before she started work.

Even if she was not entitled to the extended payment, I think she should have been paid Hb to the end of the benefit week; i.e. the Sunday following her starting work - as the fact that her partner left should not in itself have ended the benefit period. Does anyone have any other ideas - it seems she is being penalised for not having been the claimant for both Income Support and Housing Benefit. Would this be a case for a DHP to increase her entitlement for an equivalent to the extended payment period?

Alison

I have looked at regs 67 and 68 of HB (Gen) regs. I think they mean the following:

If we accept that entitlemnt to IS finished on the Sunday, because partner moved out then, thus ceasing to be a couple and all that, according to regs 68 (1) and 67(1) (a), the HB benefit period will end on the Sunday night you are looking for - the Sunday at the end of the week in which Mrs started work.

This is because the date of change for HB purposes, following from the cessation of IS, is the day AFTER the last day of benefit entitlement. The benefit period ends on the first day of the next benefit week, following the date of change. So, IS is paid up to and including Sunday. The next day is Monday. Monday is the date of change and is in the new benefit week, so the claim will cease on the first day of the next benefit week - the Monday after.

Even if IS was paid for much longer, the fact that she started work on the monday means that entitlment must cease on the next Monday anyway (67 (1) (c).

I think this is right but, as ever, stand to be corrected.

As far as the spoils of the long claim go (extended HB payments), I am afraid I do not have the time to check this, however I seem to remember some discussion on this piont - I have a vague memory that regulations or case law do provide some guidance about what to do when couples split? If you have checked this and it does not apply to your case, apologies.

Perhaps someone else can help?