I have a client who is middle-class, in her forties, and had never claimed state benefits before. She ran into financial difficulties and made a claim for income support over the telephone. She thought she was also claiming housing benefit. Her income support claim was only processed 6 months later, although she was awarded child tax credit soon after claim. She only then realised that she had not been getting housing benefit. Her housing association landlords failed to inform her that her rent was not being paid.
Are there any tribunal decisions which may support her argument for having good cause for a late claim?

Why did she think she was also claiming housing benefit? I can only assume that she filled in the HCTB1 that is part of the claim pack.

If she did fill it in what did she do with it? Did she send it to the DWP along with her cliam for IS?

If she did then she has made a claim and the date of her claim is the date of the award of IS (HB Reg 72(4) and (5))

If the claim was posted, the burden of proof will be on the authority to show that it was not received in the normal course of the post (CSIS/48/1992)

The above scenario is not about proving good cause for a late claim, but about showing that the claim was actually made on time

If the Benefit Office received notification directly from the DWP that the claimant had been awarded Income Support that suggests that a HCTB1 was received by the Income Support office. The Local Authority should therefore accept that a claim has been made - see paragraphs 37-37 of circular HB/CTB(93)41 (it's a pretty old one!)

Thanks very much to stainsby, HB/CTB Circular (93)41 is available here.

Thank you for your assistance. Unfortunately my client was not awarded income support. She is a sigle parent but has been trying to start a company. She has now been awarded backdated working tax credit.
She thought she had made a claim for housing benefit because she went into a Jobcentre and asked to claim income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit. She has a letter from Jobcentre Plus confirming that she wanted to claim those benefits.
She was told that they no longer filled in the forms, but that someone would telephone her and fill in the forms with her on the phone. The person who conducted the telephone interview asked her detailed questions about her housing and her liability for rent. She therefore thought that she had made a claim for housing benefit. She did not know that she would get letters about her housing benefit entitlement and only found out that she was not getting housing benefit when her landlords finally informed her, five months later, that her rent had not been paid.

I would have thought that if she simply presents the local authority a copy of the letter she has from Job Centre Plus which confirms that she wished to claim Housing and Council Tax Benefit in addition to Income Support, they would accept that she had actually made a claim.

Alternatively, even if they are not satisfied that she actually did claim HB / CTB, they should accept she has good cause for not making an earlier claim as based on this letter she genuinely believed she had.

Finally, the local authority may have still received notification that she was not entitled to Income Support when her DWP claim was finally processed, which (as per the aforementioned circular) would again indicate that she did actually claim HB/CTB also.

It sounds like she is in an area where the DWP operate CMS. Perhaps someone with first hand experience of that system can help further. My understanding is that many areas are experiencing extreme problems with it...

My understanding of how this process should work is that when JC+ call you back (the 'outbound'call?) and take details of your rent and Council Tax, they are taking a claim for Housing and Council Tax Benefit. This information should be forwarded to the local council as a claim for benefit. If the council require more information they should then contact you for this.

I think the details of this should appear as part of the Customer Statement which is sent to the claimant after the outbound call, which is effectively their claim (which they need to sign and bring to their first interview at JC+).

Earlier discussions of the CMS system have pointed out that the new procedures reflect a change in the administration of claiming benefit rather than the law but if all the above was done I can't see how they could argue that a claim for HB/CTB was not made. Problems may occur if the Customer Statement wasn't signed, brought to the interview at JC+ etc.

Having said all the above, the procedures often break down, JC+ staff revert to the old clerical system, some councils decide they will only accept claims if one of their forms is completed etc.. Given all this (and you need to establish what info the council were sent, whether they wrote back to your client for further info) there should be a strong argument either that a claim was made or there are grounds for backdating given the chaos that often ensues when CMS rears its ugly head.

And if a claim for IS was made and refused, the local authority should be notified of this and are required to invite a fresh claim for HB/CTB (think this is reg 72 of the old HB regs) and date of claim swill still be the date IS was claimed. Given the 6 months it took them to assess the IS claim, it is not surprising that this might not have happened.

By the way, enjoyed the DWP presentation of the CMS 'walk-through' posted here earlier. Thinking of working on a non-fiction version so any suggestions for relevant scenarios gratefully received.

If an (albeit defective) claim was made at the DWP, the date of the claim is the date it was recieved by the DWP, not the LA (HB Reg 72(5)(d)()

The authority may then take vaious steps to get the claimant to remedy the defect, one of which is to issue the form (HB Reg 72(7))

The claimant then has one month or such longer period as is reasonable to comply with whatever was required and the claim must then treated as properly made in the first instance. (HB Reg 72(8))

We are still not into backdating and proving good cause

I think Stainsby's original point in his first post is the most relevant here.

What made her "think" she, was claiming/had claimed, for Hb?

If it was a form (hctb1) which was submitted, then a claim was made etc.

If she was asked about her rent/tenancy/property details then this could have been a cms case which counts as a Hb/Ctb claim regardless of whether the primary benefit claim was ever successful.

If this was a cms area then my bet would be that it is "cms" that has let this customer down, or; her unfamiliarity with the (benefit) schemes made her think she had claimed for help with rent when she hadn't - this would not help her "good cause".

A mistaken belief reasonably held could amount to good cause. At para 5 of R(P)1/79 the Commissioner said:

“In their submissions on late claim cases insurance officers conscientiously quote the principle that a person’s ignorance of his rights — or of the time limits for claiming — is not of itself good cause for a late claim. But all too often they fail to apply it. They fail to appreciate that the words I have underlined invite a further enquiry. namely whether there are facts leading to a conclusion that the claimant’s ignorance was reasonable. In Wall’s Meat Co Ltd v Khan <1979> I.C.R. 52 the Court of Appeal was concerned with an employee’s delayed complaint of unfair dismissal made to an industrial tribunal. Lord Denning MR said (at page 56)

“Ignorance of his rights — or ignorance of the time limit — is not just cause or excuse, unless it appears that he or his advisors could not reasonably be expected to have been aware of them.”

And in the same case Brandon LJ pointed out that there could be
good cause for delay if the delay was due to a mistaken belief reasonably held.”

Agreed, but how many times have you heard a dm say something along the lines of "ignorance is not good cause".

This is what I mean when I say it wont help toward a "good cause" (probably) because the phrase is often misinterpreted to mean ignorance is never good cause.

I believe, in some circumstances, that ignorance "could" be reasonable, unfortunately some dm's hence some la's seem to have a blanket policy on this.

I also feel ignorance (not knowing) is vey close to a mistaken belief.

Is there a record made of all CMS calls like there is for the Tax Credit helpline? If so a subject access request could get a CD of the offending call.

When all else fails, surely this is a case for an ex-gratia claim against the DWP?

My understanding is that JCP should hold a copy of the ICF (integrated claim form)the HB/CTB claim form (the clone)which ought to have been sent to the LA isn't really the issue. If the ICF exists then a claim was completed and a clone should have been sent to the LA regardless of any defect. That should again help you establish that a claim was actually made.

Thanks all. The local authority have agreed to the backdated claim of over £5000.
In CH/4501/2004 the Commissioner decided that a lack of knowledge of the benefits system can be considered good cause for a backdated claim.