Booking Habitual Residence Test for Universal Credit

HellKnight

To give some context, I am a European citizen who is currently living with an EEA migrant worker relative. I submitted a Universal Credit claim recently due to my inability to find work in the 6 months that I've been in the UK. In the end, I managed to get a job but my work coach told me not to cancel my claim.

So far, I have attended every one of my appointments, including my residence test. I have provided every one of my documents. Last week, I received a notification in my journal stating that my entitlement to Univeral Credit has been approved and that I have a right to reside in the UK as a family member of an EEA migrant worker. However, I also noticed that a task on my to-do list has been added. It states that I need to book a Habitual Residency Appointment in order to process my claim. So I called the JobCentre and explained my situation. The person on the phone told me that he himself didn't know why that appeared on my to-do list, considering that my entitlement to UC had been approved. I shrugged it off as a technical error and didn't think anything of it until now.

I decided to google the exact lines Habitual Residency Appointment and after reading the same article for the n-th time, I finally understood why I had this on my to-do list. There are apparently two stages of the residence test: the proof right to reside and the proof that I intend to reside in the UK.

My claim is supposed to be paid on Thursday next week but it's Friday night, the jobcentre is closed and I am pretty certain that I won't be able to book an appointment on Monday for the same week (due to the high amount of people claiming UC). Is my claim going to be postponed if I can only book the appointment for next week? If not, are there any serious consequences that I should be aware of?

huckster

Give Universal Credit a call on Monday, as I think there may be an error.

If they have told you in your journal that you are entitled to claim Universal Credit, that seems to indicate you have met the HRT test.

If so, why is there a need to book a further HRT related appointment ? Might this be a future review say in 3 months to see if you are still working and not a current requirement ?

When you call UC, ask them to send a handover to the Case Manager that administers your claim and ask that the Case Manager contacts the Job Centre Work Coach to query the HRT to-do action.

Ineededaname

If you are due to be paid on Thursday you should now have a statement on your account for the payment. If that's there then I wouldn't worry too much. If it isn't there then the payment is blocked in some way, although this could be something else entirely.

Either way you should contact them to try and get an answer.

HellKnight

Thanks to everyone! I contacted them just now and I had a very good laugh with an adviser. I booked my appointment but then he noticed that my entitlement to universal credit had been approved. He told me that I didn't need to go to the HRT since I am already registered as an EEA
family member of a migrant worker. He cancelled the appointment and told me that everything is fine.

What is strange is that it says that if I am eligible, I will be paid in 3 days. I haven't got a statement on my account, unfortunately. Will I get notified on Thursday?

huckster

If statement not showing day before payment due, give them a call, as otherwise payment may be delayed.

What happens is the erroneous HRT needs clearing and they then need to calculate payment, issue statement and process the payment. Hopefully this is being done, but chase them up if necessary.

Sanders1899

How long after you had your Residence test have you received your decision that you are entitled to universal credit?