My client was refused asylum in Jan 2001 and immediately appealed against the decision.

He continued to receive IS and HB until his appeal was heard in Sept 2002 when he was granted exceptional leave to remain.

The HB authority have declared the HB my client received between the initial refusal of asylum and the subsequent granting of Exceptional leave to remain to overpaid.

Are they correct?

Thank you for any help you can give me. If you can point to any regulations I can quote to the HB authority it would be extremely welcome.

Thanks again.

An asylum seeker who is able to claim benefits under some form of transitional protection (either a person who claimed asylum prior to 4 Feb 1996 OR one who claimed on arrival in the UK before 2 April 2000) loses that transitional protection when there is an initial decision by the Home Office on the asylum application.

This means that the LA are probably correct to say there is an o/p of HB between the initial refusal and the grant of exeptional leave.

HOWEVER, it is worth checking whether your client had any other route to claiming HB in between those two dates (for example a turkish national lawfully present in UK etc).
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There will then be the issue of firstly whether the o/p is recoverable and secondly whether it should be recovered- if he had not had the HB during that time would he not have received some other form of support? Can the o/p recovered be reduced to reflect that etc?