stainsby
Welfare Benefits Officer, Gallions Housing Association, Thamesmead SE London
Member since 22nd Jan 2004
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RE: Sole or main residence
Thu 05-Mar-09 04:05 PM |
Thu 05-Mar-09 04:07 PM by stainsby
Paras 20- 21 of CH/3935/2007
".....Although there was nowhere for the daughter to live other than with her mother, that did not mean that she was normally living with her.
21. I can find nothing wrong in law with the tribunal’s analysis. Nor can I find anything wrong with it in fact. At that time, the daughter’s future was still uncertain. As far as the claimant and her daughter were concerned, the arrangement was temporary, provisional and, so far as the suitability of the accommodation was concerned, far from satisfactory. The daughter had no other accommodation, but that might change. If she were able to find employment or even to claim an appropriate package of benefits, she might be able to find her own accommodation. In view of the nature of the accommodation that mother and daughter were sharing, the local authority might have been able to find somewhere for the daughter to live. In short, it was too soon for it to be said that the daughter normally resided there. The tribunal was right in fact and law to revise the decision of 6 May by removing the non-dependant deduction. "
Although the Commissioner did not put it that way, the Tribunal did point out to the presenting officer at the time that he considered it perfectly feasible for a person not to be normally residing anywhere.
The Commissioner emphasised that the question of whther or note the person normally resides with a claimant is a question of fact, not law, and you cannot infer the facts of one case by direct comparison with another case that was before a Commissioner
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