Housing Benefits

dawn1star

Hi, just wondered if somebody can answer this for me as I've never had to claim housing benefits before.

My niece and her partner have just been told they're not eligible for housing benefit now because they earned too much last year!! I assumed it would be assessed on what you were earning NOW not last year!! Is this right?

Many thanks

Jowo_2

Is that the only information they were given about their claim or do you have any further details? Do they have any capital (savings, ISAs, etc)?

The reason I ask is that there was a similar thread on here a few weeks ago from someone who said they were aware of an acquiatance being rejected for benefits who was told by the authorities that they earned too much in the past and should have saved some of it.

What actually happened is that the claimant received a lump sum in their recent past and spent it on paying down some kind of loan in advance of when it legally needed to be paid off. I can't quite remember the details but maybe they had redundancy pay or an inheritance which they used to pay off their mortgage or credit cards early or something along those lines.

In that particular thread they were being disingenuous - it was nothing about their actual income in the past year, nor their failure to build up a nest egg, but everything to do with being considered to have deliberately deprived themselves of their capital in order to claim means tested benefits. They were being sanctioned for deprivation of capital by having the DWP apply notional capital - this is when the DWP decide to count the money that the claimant has wrongly deprived themselves of. In other words, the DWP treat the claimant like they still have the capital, even though they don't.

So could this be a potential barrier to housing benefit? Not that their last years income was too high but that they spent a lump sum or transferred capital in some way that the DWP believe should have been used to pay their ordinary living expenses like their rent?

ajones28

Yes there is no way that they can judge it on last years income unless like Jowo said there has been either some kind of lump sum payment or redundancy pay. If nothing like this has occurred they need to apply for an appeal against the decision (it should be no later than 28 days from the date of the original application usually). They local council need to look at their current circumstances and their ability to pay. Tell them they need to follow this one up if none of the above apply that they shouldn't let it drop as there has got to be a mistake.