Claim, stop, claim.

Client was advised to claim UC in August when she tried to claim HB. She made her claim the same day and then read about UC on the internet and discovered that she couldn’t claim CTC and UC at the same time. Thinking she had done something wrong, and fearing that she would get into trouble, she phoned UC the next day. She told them that she’d found out that she shouldn’t have claimed UC as she was already getting CTC, so she’d like to stop her UC claim and just continue with CTC. UC accepted this and stopped the application.

Two weeks later, the client received a letter from HMRC to say CTC had stopped due to UC claim. Cl called HMRC who advised she couldn’t get CTC any more, unless UC would withdraw the stop notice. She called UC who advised her the stop notice couldn’t be stopped, but she could still claim UC. So she made a new claim for UC.

The problem is that she now has an AP from 29th to 28th, and is paid monthly on the last Friday of the month. So, by my calculation, she will miss out on about £900 Work Allowance over the next year (but won’t lose all entitlement in any month).

How do we put this right? We’re dealing with the two paydays issue with MR and will appeal and then wait for Johnson to make its way through the Court of Appeal (and inevitably the Supreme Court). But can we do anything about the original claim? My first thought is that there is no decision to revise - the claim was withdrawn at the claimant’s request. But she told them exactly why she wanted to end the claim, and it was clearly a mistake which would have been obvious to anybody who knows anything about UC (and the UC helpline ought to know something about UC). So then I am thinking it could be a complaint or even JR - no reasonable authority would have dealt with her call in that way; allowing her to end her claim for a spurious reason without pointing out her mistake. But where would that get us? Compensation? Resurrect the original claim? Any ideas?

Is it worth her making a SAR for a recording of the phone call when she asked them to stop the claim?