client working currently and waiting for arrears of maintenance to come through from CSA.Arrears due from March 2005 and she has been working through out the whole period. She is also waiting for a special payment from CSA because they lost her original application made in Oct. 2004. Client is due to be made redundant in Jan. 06...possible redundancy of £5k.

If she claims HB/CTB and is not an IS recipient can some one please tell me how the arrears (and special payment) will be treated, ie ignored or treated as income, (because the arrears will be paid on a weekly basis,) or as capital....i have ferreted around and found nothing conclusive. i would imagine this is not a very rare scenario.
Thanks alot.

If i get you correctly the special payment will be a lump sum. The LA could treat this as capital.

The regular weekly payments of CSA will be maintenance and treated as other income.

Maintenance has a £15 per week disregard from that income in HB/CTB claims.

Your special payment and redundancy payment go over the lower capital limit £3,000.00 and will be subject to tarrif income i.e. for every £250 over £3,000 there will be £1 added as income.

regards,

Brad.

Thank you for your reply, but can you please clarify if the part of the weekly maintenance which is arrears ie that should have been paid in a past period is either ignored as income or treated as capital.

It seems commonsense that it should be ignored as income, because the situation is analogous to receiving arrears of benefit which is counted as capital but ignored for 52 weeks i believe.

Please direct me to any relevant legal provisions.

thanks.

it is treated as income because the LA will see that it is a regular weekly payment. To be fair it really wouldn't matter if it was for a prior period as no HB has been in payment. The LA would only be concerned with the current amount of other income i.e. the actual maintenance payment.

CPAG Welfare Benefits handbook 05/06 page 872 for the maintenance payments.

DWP consider the arrears due before, but paid after, are treated as paid in that week. page 866.

Although that is for I/S and JSA purposes. It is highly probable the LA would also look at it this way for HB/CTB purposes.

Unfortunately, I don't have my CPAG or Shelter Guide to hand, but I'm not convinced about some of the preceding advice.

Whilst it is true that arrears of several state benefits are disregarded as *capital* for 52 weeks, many still count as INCOME for the period the payment(s) are in respect of.

Off the top of my head, I don't recall arrears of CSA payments being disregarded at all.

If I'm wrong on the above, I shall be happy to post a correction - I'll check tomorrow. Whichever argument is correct, it will not be discretionary - the LA shall be REQUIRED to treat the arrears in accordance with the Regs.

Further, the £15 disregard only applies if the clmt's applicable amount includes the Family Premium.

One final point - this is intended to be constructive. It is dangerous to assume that HB/CTB rules are the same as IS/JSA. Many are indeed the same, but there are sufficient differences to make assumptions a touch hair raising.

Regards

Right, now had a chance to look at the Shelter Guide.

Following that, I believe my earlier post is correct (for u-60s).

Arrears of CSA payments are not disregarded. They count as income for the period they are in respect of AND, unless there is a change I've missed, there is no 52 week disregard on the capital side either. So, for CSA payments, there is a double whammy.

The £15 disregard is also correct (i.e. Family Premium must apply) - it applies to the TOTAL of all maintenance payments being received. If, for example, a clmt receives payments from the CSA as well as maintenance from a different source, both payments are aggregated and the £15 disregard is applied only once, to the aggregate.

Hope this clarifies.

Regards

Hi Alison

I've got an appeal on the same point, which is due to be heard in a couple of weeks time. It concerns a client who has been getting very sporadic payments from the CSA. I have argued that these should be treated as capital rather than income, becuase they are not regular payments. I'll let you know the outcome.

Sara

Thanks Kevin D for your input.

Thanks Sara. yes i would like to know the outcome because my client may be in the same position further down the line.