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UC Migration by Stealth
indeed.
repeats the rot the DWP often trot out - you’re not allowed a boyfriend even if you don’t live together ....
gah!
Its a standard letter sent out as part of the compliance process (remember the Concentrix debacle?) when HMRC have a suspicion (usually from data matching / credit reference agency info.) that there may be another person in the household.
The next stage is often the ‘you need to prove your single claim’ letter which requests the claimant to provide a long list of docs. inc. rent/mortgage details, bank statements, insurance details, council tax demand etc.
Followed by the ‘you are not entitled to claim as a single person ’ letter because ‘we already have enough information to link [person X] to your address’. However HMRC will never disclose what that evidence is until the appeal stage. This letter is usually (but not always - just a TC607 letter) followed by a separate entitlement and overpayment decision ending the single claim and providing the right to MR.
There is of course a very long list of UT decisions that address various aspects of the way HMRC arrive at such ‘living together’ decisions - they are not favourable to HMRC!
and i recall a case a couple of years or so ago where they matched a single mother to her landlord, a well known newsagents chain….
and i recall a case a couple of years or so ago where they matched a single mother to her landlord, a well known newsagents chain….
Yep - and I have had cases were the link was made to the claimant’s father, another woman down the street (credit reference had transposed the house no), late partner etc etc. I have yet to see a case in which HMRC have made a ‘proper’ LT investigation and sought/use anything other credit reference and other centrally stored data.
I had a client who was accused of being in a relationship with her landlord. Because, surprise surprise, when HMRC did checks, they found links between the landlord and a house he owned and in which he used to live! That was literally their only evidence. We’ve found a connection between this bloke to a house he owns, so you must be in a relationship with him. There was all the fuss about Concentrix but HMRC on their own are no better.