Client is a single parent.

Client had a baby just under a year ago. Due to clients history social services have placed her in a mother and baby unit in a different borough to monitor her with her child. Client tells me she has been in unit for 13 months. Client has come to see me as she has a NOSP (she has not been paying water rates, old arrears or overpayment). At present client is getting full Housing benefit. Can anyone advise me how long the client can be in the unit before housing benefit is stopped? Client is heavily pregnant again so I guess she may have to stay longer still. The client has no option but to stay in the unit if she wants to keep her child.

All the info I can find states 52 weeks when a client is in hospital, this situation seems a bit different though.

I have little information about the case, as the client is very unclear regarding specific information.

Sorry... forgot to mention that the NOSP and HB query is for a flat in our borough for which she has been absent from for 13 months. I believe that social services are funding her place at the mother and baby unit.

If your client has been there for 13 months she has exhausted he limit of time for being absent from her flat, and that is on the basis that one could argue (stretching a point) that she has been receiving medical care. That is assuming she really has not been back to the flat in all that time. Even a very short period of reoccupation would be enough to end the absence and start another one - and there is no linking rule for absences.

The client goes to a flat once a week to collect post but does not stay over night. She insists that her housing officer and benefits are aware of the situation.

I am concerned that she has informed her housing officer but not benefits - she is very vague about everything I ask her.

The Housing Benefit Guidance manual states that there has to be a 'genuine re-occupation' of the property to end a period of temporary absence. If she has already been absent for more than 52 weeks and has only ever returned to collect her post, I'm afraid Housing Benefit may stop.

Whether the benefit she has previously received would be deemed an overpayment would probably depend on how long it was anticipated she would be away from the property at the outset. It it was always likely she would be away for more than 52 weeks continuously, her housing benefit should have probably stopped immediately. However, if her Housing Officer was aware of this, you could probably argue any subsequent overpayment should be deemed unrecoverable.

Thank you.

As she is still getting the Housing Benefit I will need to advise her that it is her duty to inform them that she is away from home. The fact that she has no option than to stay in the Mother and baby Unit is a problem. If she leaves social services will not allow her to take her child. If she stays she will lose her home and have no where to go once she is allowed to leave.

I'm thinking she may need a solicitor for this one.

Are Social Services aware of the effect this is going to have on her benefits? Presumably losing her home or ending up in debt is not going to help her establish her family.

Maybe they have scope at least to allow her back to her flat for short (supervised?) periods (if this is suitable for your client) so that the period of absence can be renewed and benefit entitlement maintained.