What constitutes a change of circumstance for means tested benefits?

grumpyoldnumbersman

My father and I are at magistrates court tomorrow morning. He is in receipt of council tax benefit since his income from state and private pensions qualified him for it. The council issued him with a bill for overpayment due to an "increase" in income; however, other than normal indexation of pensions there has been no increase. They have also noted that his tax coding had changed at age 75 (and thus by default increased his net income) which they also consider to be a change of circumstances.


The rules clearly state that the claimant should inform of changes which they "might reasonably be expected to know might affect the claimant’s right to, the amount of or the receipt of housing benefit".


As well as not considering it reasonable to inform them of a change of circs under these definitions, we think that changes to taxation or normal indexation are not a change of circumstance and that if this were so, then every claimant's circumstances would be changing by default as inflation-based increases are applied to benefits and in some cases where taxes change due to budgetary reforms which happen every year.


We declined to attend a First Tier Tribunal as it appeared that their only brief was to check if the calculations were correct on the premise that our argument as to what constitutes change was not part of their remit.


Any pointers would be great and I will of course let you know the outcome.

CIS

Is his court hearing for non-payment of the council tax ?

grumpyoldnumbersman

Well, yes, I guess so. as far as we are concerned it is to settle the dispute, but I think the council initiated just to extricate payment...

FBaby

I supposed or all comes down to the timescale. Are we talking 2% increase in the last year or 2% annually over say 10 years which would result in a significant increase over that time.

seven-day-weekend

I would have thought it 'reasonable' to assume that as his income goes up (from index-linking and tax code changes) heis entitlement to means-tested Benefits would go down and therefore he should have reported the changes.

grumpyoldnumbersman

Thanks for your reply but did you read the WHOLE post???


If indexation of income constitutes a change of circumstance, then EVERY claimant of EVERY means-tested benefit should be informing of a change of circs EVERY time there is a budget (and therefore a change of tax coding) or when usual RPI increases are applied to benefits.


I practice this DOES NOT HAPPEN of course.


So to paraphrase my original question: Should every claimant of benefits be having their cases reviewed at least twice a year...?


I hope the magistrate understands what I am getting at tomorrow... :-(

fluffymovie

Hi there

I feel you may have missed a trick by appealing to the FtT and then declining to go.

They are totally independent of the council and make a decision based on the law. If your appeal was that he should not have had to notify the change, then I am confused why you felt they would not listen to your view?

We only go to FtT if the claimant appeals and we feel we are unable to change our decision = the ground s of the appeal are set out in the submission?

seven-day-weekend

grumpyoldnumbersman wrote: »

Thanks for your reply but did you read the WHOLE post???


If indexation of income constitutes a change of circumstance, then EVERY claimant of EVERY means-tested benefit should be informing of a change of circs EVERY time there is a budget (and therefore a change of tax coding) or when usual RPI increases are applied to benefits.


I practice this DOES NOT HAPPEN of course.


So to paraphrase my original question: Should every claimant of benefits be having their cases reviewed at least twice a year...?


I hope the magistrate understands what I am getting at tomorrow... :-(

When my husband was on Incapacity Benefit, he informed them every time his his Pension went up, so that they could deduct the correct amount from his IB. I assumed everybody in that position would do so.

grumpyoldnumbersman

Oh great. Then the FtT weren't very clear with their remit when they wrote to us. I got the clear impression that all they do is check the calculations which, based on the premise that normal indexations constitute a "qualifying" increase in income, would have been correct. The premise of our complaint is that pretty much everyone has an increase in income every year and a change of tax coding. If that constitutes a change of circs then they would never cope with all the forms being sent in!


I guess what we are looking at here is that whilst means-tested benefits are based on need, the method of assessing that need does not account for inflation. A slight flaw, wouldn't you agree...?

Tiddlywinks

grumpyoldnumbersman wrote: »

I guess what we are looking at here is that whilst means-tested benefits are based on need, the method of assessing that need does not account for inflation. A slight flaw, wouldn't you agree...?

I think your energies would be better placed dealing specifically with your Dad's issue rather than spending time chewing over the general 'flaws' or what everyone else does, don't you?

CIS

In which case the court summons is a separate issue in law and needs to dealt with separately - the court summons amount needs to be paid and dealt with as it is considered to be correct as far as recovery of the council tax is concerned.

You need to deal with the council tax support dispute through the relevant process but it won't stop council tax recovery in the meantime.