Hi everyone,

I have a bit of a problem...!

I have a client who say's that in September 03, when she applied for Income Support, she also completed the forms to apply for HB through the DWP.

HB are saying that no forms have ever been received and the claimant has had plenty of time to query this.

Tenant is due to be evicted due to having rent arrears of over £4000..!

Someone said to have a look at reg. 72 but I can't find it anywhere...

Any help would be appreicated..

thanks

You can get reg 72 by going through following links toolkit -legislation - Law relating to Social Security. This opens up a pdf file. Down the left hand side are years. click on the plus sign for 1987 and then scroll down to 1987/1971. The HB regs should open in the right hand pane. Scroll to find reg 72 (p133). To access ameded regs in this way you need to know original SI details e.g. HB general regs 1987 No. 1971. You can find list these via Welfare Rights handbook appendix 11 list of abbreviations.

Have fun.

missed a step last link to pdf is 'Statutory Instruments all volumes'

here's the link to the consolidated version of the Housing Benefit (General) Regulations 1987

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/advisers/docs/lawvols/bluevol/pdf/a8_2601.pdf

Has the claimant been in touch with the Housing Benefit Unit at any point? Have they been advised that they haven't received a claim from them? Do they mean they completed one of the HCTB1/NHB1 forms or did they complete the Local Authority's application form? Why have they left it so late before chasing up the claim with the Local Authority since I presume that they were receiving letters from the Landlord regarding increasing arrears?

The DWP often do not keep proper records of HCTB1 claims that they forward to LA's

HB Reg 72(4)(a) allows a claim to be sent or delivered to the DWP office where the claimant has claimed IS.

HB Reg 72(5) makes the date of such a claim the date it was received at the DWP office (if no IS was awarded ), or the date of the award of IS

Did the LA receive notification of the IS award in September 2003? If so, I would ask them to have a look at circular HB/CTB(93)41 which includes an extract from Circular IS(OS) 27/93.

This circular states that if a LA receives notification of an IS award, this suggests that the claimant submitted a HB/CTB claim form to the Benefit Agency. It goes onto to state that if the claim form has been lost or has not been received by the LA, they may be able to establish a HB/CTB claim by simply looking at the notification produced by the DWP.

It is quite an old circular but we still refer to it in scenario's you have described!

All LA's now have access to the DWP IS/JSA systems through RATs...

There is a specific screen on RATs that shows all NHB1 claims that have been received, (with date of receipt), and which LA they have been issued... (the date sent to the LA, also confirming the date is was sent to that LA).

You should ask the LA for a printout of that screen, (if the NHB1 was received by the DWP, it will alert the LA that a claim has been made... or whether it has been sent to the 'wrong LA' as often happens in cases where the post code covers two authority areas).

The fact that the HB section will not supply a copy of that screen (if requested!), will mean that a SSAT will be able to draw 'adverse inference' and decided that a claim had in fact been made,

another place to get the HB regs - v. easy to use

http://www.hbinfo.org/menu2/hbregs/hbindex.htm