Jobcentre Tribunal

WPN

real1314 wrote: »

But you don't. DWP either accept the deicsion or appeal against it. If they don't appeal, they have to pay the relevant benefit.
Sometimes the wheels turn slowly in terms of making it, but they still have to pay it. You don't need courts, bailiffs or any other enforcement action.
It would just be a case of complaining through the relevant channels as with any other DWP "failing". :cool:

Interesting, payment should be prompt within 2 weeks... so are you saying its fine if takes 18 months or so? I am not saying DWP can decide to ignore its judgement, however, the tribunal cannot enforce WHEN it must be paid. So DWP can just make "mistakes" in the meanwhile.

You cannot enforce payment other than via moaning at DWP - the enforcement bit was in regards to say the small claims court. I never said about getting baliffs or taking them to court to get payment.

AsknAnswer2

crs281 wrote: »

So does anybody know if the housing/council tax benefit will automatically get backdated too? And if I'll be able to get the court charges refunded?

You should have appealed the housing/council tax benefit at the time, or submitted a new claim on the grounds of low income. Send them a letter asking for an 'anytime revision' with a copy of your tribunal decision letter.

JSA are not responsible for your court fees, as there were options available to you to secure your entitlement to housing benefit in the absence of JSA. You do not need to be getting JSA to claim housing benefit and should have as I said, either appealed the housing benefit stopping or applied on the grounds of low income for the period in question. JSA are not liable to take any responsibility for your failing to establish your right to housing benefit in the absence of a JSA award.

You can speak to the DWP about applying for a "Special Payment" for the court fees but my guess is that the above will be the response.

crs281

AsknAnswer2 wrote: »

You should have appealed the housing/council tax benefit at the time, or submitted a new claim on the grounds of low income. Send them a letter asking for an 'anytime revision' with a copy of your tribunal decision letter.

JSA are not responsible for your court fees, as there were options available to you to secure your entitlement to housing benefit in the absence of JSA. You do not need to be getting JSA to claim housing benefit and should have as I said, either appealed the housing benefit stopping or applied on the grounds of low income for the period in question. JSA are not liable to take any responsibility for your failing to establish your right to housing benefit in the absence of a JSA award.

You can speak to the DWP about applying for a "Special Payment" for the court fees but my guess is that the above will be the response.

I received the Tribunal decision notice today, which says "the Respondent (DWP) acted inappropriately in closing his claim before that information (uni withdrawal letter) was received, as Mr Smith kept the Respondent fully updated about his efforts to obtain the necessary letter."

The housing/tax benefit claim was made at the same time as the JSA, but it wasn't until a month later that I discovered that the Jobcentre hadn't even forwarded the housing/tax benefit claim on to the LHA. I managed to get the housing/tax benefit backdated, via a tribunal, to the date when I had to apply myself.

I have just contacted my legal advisor, and he said that I may be able to get the rest of the housing/tax benefit backdated, as it was linked to the original JSA claim. It was the responsibility of the Jobcentre to forward the housing/tax claim on to the LHA, which they did not do.

The courts costs were a direct result of the wrongful closure of the original JSA claim. The DWP repeatedly tried to say that I had not made a JSA claim, as there was records missing of the claim on the system. It looks to me as if someone closed the claim when they should not have done, and then tried to delete all trace of me ever making the claim in the first place, but I kept all documentation and letters from them, and managed to find evidence of the claim and signing on dates from the masses of print-outs they provided.

So now they have to return me, financially, to the state I was in if the original claim had not have been closed, which includes JSA payments, housing/council tax benefit, court costs, loss of interest, plus any recompense. Lets see how they liked being chased and made a fool of.

At the end of the day, I won and those liars lost, so I'm happy

AsknAnswer2

As I said, you can certainly claim for it. The worst that can happen is you'll get nothing. Whatever your 'legal advisor' may think of it, there is more to it than the closure of a JSA claim.

They were liable for not forwarding the inital claim yes - but that is not the issue here.

The courts costs were a direct result of the wrongful closure of the original JSA claim.

No, the court costs were a direct result of your being in arrears with your rent, and failing to establish an appeal or a new claim to housing benefit. It takes some considerable time to go to court for rent arrears, and you will be asked why in that time, you did not submit a new claim to housing benefit or appeal the decision to stop it, or otherwise assert what your rights were. I'm not being nasty here - I'm showing you what DWP will argue. I can give you hearts and flowers and agree with everything you say if you want, but that won't help you and it won't prepare you. Hopefully they will agree to a Special Payment without argument, but you need to be aware of what is coming if they decide to fight it.

Be prepared to answer questions such as why you didn't make enquiries with the local authority when it became evident that you were in arrears and if you did, why you did not make an appeal or apply on the grounds of low income. If you complained to the council and they did not advise you correctly, (i.e told you that you could only get housing benefit if it was linked to your JSA claim, which is rubbish) it is them who would be liable, not JSA.

In regard to the backdate, this should be fine if the claim was linked and the tribunal have backdated your JSA until then. But again HB might get arsey over it and ask for evidence that JSA had a claim form and agreed to forward it to the council on your behalf. They shouldn't though, you have good reason for a backdate if you have tribunal sucess backdating the JSA claim.

Best wishes.

crs281

Update: I received the fully backdated JSA payment last week, nearly £600, had to chase them up about it a couple of times though. I also filed a complaint to the Jobcentre, and a lady from DWP phoned me just over a week later, she said she was a "decision maker", she was friendly and apologetic, and asked if I could send her the court cost letters, plus any other evidence of costs incurred, and anything that should be taken into consideration for financial redress, so I sent the requested info off last week.

It turns out that the Jobcentre did not even forward my application for HB/CTB to the LHA in the first place.

I contacted the LHA and requested that the remaining HB/CTB get backdated, as the JSA backdating was awarded in full, I also provided the signed evidence which showed I did make the HB/CTB application at the same time as the JSA claim. I received a letter today stating that the rest of the HB/CTB will be backdated to that date Just got to go through the process of getting the rent refunded to me again now.

I'll let you know what the decision maker's response will be