Forum Home → Discussion → Universal credit administration → Thread
UC Reg 26 challenge
Hello.
My client was on her husband’s ESA claim. He died quite suddenly and cl was unable to claim UC until 14 days after.
We thought that this Reg 26 3 a may apply but as cl was not the claimant it has been refused.
Any thoughts/merit in challenging that do you think?
: 26.—(1) Subject to the following provisions of this regulation, a claim for universal credit must be made on the first day of the period in respect of which the claim is made.
(2) Where the claim for universal credit is not made within the time specified in paragraph (1), the Secretary of State is to extend the time for claiming it, subject to a maximum extension of one month, to the date on which the claim is made, if—
(a)any one or more of the circumstances specified in paragraph (3) applies or has applied to the claimant; and
(b)as a result of that circumstance or those circumstances the claimant could not reasonably have been expected to make the claim earlier.
(3) The circumstances referred to in paragraph (2) are—
(a)the claimant was previously in receipt of a jobseeker’s allowance or an employment and support allowance and notification of expiry of entitlement to that benefit was not sent to the claimant before the date that the claimant’s entitlement expired;
have seen this before and I think the only workable way of resolving it is to argue that sickness applied and delayed the claim (under 26 (3)(c) ) and for that to be applied evidence of the sickness would have to be obtained (from GP etc). Very unfair and unreasonable, I know, but that is all I can suggest
1. I agree that you should explore whether claimant can put forward an argument that she was sick- I can’t imagine many Doctors would refuse to give someone a note saying they were unwell due to bereavement. In fact, I suspect the DWP should just accept that someone who was bereaved in last 2 to 3 weeks was unable to work due to illness.
2. If that fails then I think there might be some way that reg 26(3)(a) could be read to include claimant’s partner in receipt of the relevant benefit- or even simply disapply all words in para (2) from “if” in the specific circumstances of a case as discriminatory against partner claimants not to include them in reg 26(3) (partner claimants potentially more likely to be women I think so status could be gender or status could just be “I was the partner of a claimant”).
If you end up having to argue the case on discrimination grounds then get in touch with CPAG.
1. I agree that you should explore whether claimant can put forward an argument that she was sick- I can’t imagine many Doctors would refuse to give someone a note saying they were unwell due to bereavement. In fact, I suspect the DWP should just accept that someone who was bereaved in last 2 to 3 weeks was unable to work due to illness.
Quite. The word the regs use is “illness”. It’s broad enough that it doesn’t require a specific medical diagnosis and I am sure it covers general stress etc. in this kind of a case.
Marie Curie have some useful info on physical manifestations of grief (on top of the more obvious mental strain).