Housing Benefit Home Visit

Penny-Pincher!!

Hi

I live in london and we have never had HB ask to visit us They accepted printed online statements and even a balance of account receipt from the cash point.

Maybe someone who knows you spend alot of time abroad has reported you for claiming HB but not actually being in the property alot IYKWIM. I dont know alot about HB but does seem strange/unfair to me that you are allowed to spend 2-3 months at a time abroad and get your rent paid in the UK

No offence meant.

PP
xx

anguk

Our last two HB reviews have been home visits, they've changed it so all reviews are home visits. The first time I got a letter I panicked thinking I'd done something wrong (I also cleaned the house from top to bottom) but when the officer came out he explained that it was easier for them to come out and they could also checked you actually lived there.

We've always had at least 2 weeks notice that they were coming, if it's inconvenient we can change the appointment. I've had to show them my rent agreement or rent book, proof of income from the benefits office and a bank statement, they accepted a printed statement and didn't take anything away he just took photos of them with his digital camera!

I actually found the whole thing a lot easier than the usual hassle of filling in the review forms. The housing benefits office may not be checking up on you, they may have just changed over to home visits for everyone like my local authority.

Savvy_Sue

In defence of turning up unannounced, I used to work for a HA, not on the front line, but the Housing Officers would sometimes just turn up, especially if the tenant had not responded to letters, or if they realised they were close to a tenant it would be useful to see. In the latter case they would happily make an appointment if it wasn't convenient to come in then.

They would also do their best to work with tenants to make sure HB claims went in on time (many problems caused by tenants failing to respond to renewal notices, for whatever reason!) and would phone the council to hassle them if claims were taking a long time to be processed.

There are some people who really struggle with paperwork, and I'm not suggesting that any of the posters here are in that category and you may not feel it's appropriate for everyone to be treated in this way, BUT a) it does check that the person claiming does live at the property, which is surely a reasonable thing to do? and b) there are times when a home visit, unannounced, is the ONLY way to get a claim form filled in! It's in no-one's interest, not even the council's, for arrears to build up because a claim wasn't made at the right time!

anniecave

Barcode,

I would find out the rules relating to your benefit and being out of the country, before you get any visits. If you're honest, you don't want to be claiming benefits you're not entitled to. Also if you know what the rules are then you can bear it in mind. For example if I was gonna lose money by going abroad to visit a friend then I'd budget for it.

On the other issue, I would have thought that having a partner you don't live with is entirely irrelevant to anything money related, so I wouldn't even mention it. The entire concept of partners in any money-related stuff is just to pick up where people are supporting other people financially. All irrelevant in your case.

On the subject of visits, if you explain you're studying, then I would have thought they would be able to make an appointment at a convenient time, eg a morning or afternoon when you can be in.

I hope it all works out for you anyway.

Helen_from_yorkshire

In terms of bank statements and the OP concern that the Housing Benefit Officer will see all your spending whilst on holiday in Switzerland, surely the Housing Benefit Officer only needs to see the balance of the account and not the specifics of transactions.

Could you cross out the details of the transactions with a black marker pen so the details of the transactions are not shown. Surely he has no right to see what you have been spending your money on.

Barcode

That's true, I just don't want to draw attention to myself. But you're right, they don't have a right to see what I spend my money on. I do think they should see my total income, obviously to prove I don't have enough savings, but the specifics are my own business.

I dont know alot about HB but does seem strange/unfair to me that you are allowed to spend 2-3 months at a time abroad and get your rent paid in the UK

My situation is that I'm a deaf student. The usual kinds of employment are unavailable to me (waitressing, bar work etc) for obvious reasons. My partner is foreign. There is a 13 week rule which says that anybody can go on holiday to visit friends, relatives etc and still have benefit paid providing that (a) they intend to return to the property (b) it is not subletted and (c) the visit does not exceed 13 weeks.

I meet all of those conditions. I'm not doing anything wrong. At home, I would be doing precisely nothing. Well, studying, but I can do that over here and see my partner too. It's just the attitude I'm getting from the HB people that I'm some sort of scrounger who should have a lot of free time and be in whenever they decide to give notice that annoys me. They seem to treat people as fraudsters unless proven otherwise.

In this case, I am entitled to benefits - my student status caused no end of confusion at the benefits office, and it took about a year before the whole fiasco was sorted. Which is why I'm nervous about anything from the benefits office relating to my claim.

If I thought I was breaking the law, I'd obviously inform them and stop my benefits. Better to be (even more) broke for a while than to have a bad record. If I do this next year, I'm going to tell them the dates I'll be away etc so I don't have this stress. That way, they can't blame me for anything that may happen about my benefits.

Thanks for all the advice - it is much appreciated.

Bossyboots

If they think you are spending money to keep your savings down and thus remain entitled to benefits then they can ask to see what you are spending your money on. Likewise, if you blank out items on your statement they may believe it is income you are trying to hide.

If you want to claim benefits you should expect a degree of instrusion. It is this intrusion that helps keep money in the pot by weeding out those who are not actually entitled who try to claim. You will see from my thread in the vent board though that those implementing the assessments seem to have little competence.

I was annoyed when some of my mum's transactions were queried for her CTB but largely because of how it was approached and it would be embarrasing if the expenditure had been for something extremely personal but I can see that it is only fair that we show she has not deliberately removed money from the account. I have pointed out to them though that they should simply have asked what the withdrawals were, not dressed it up in a letter which defies logic.

Barcode

Understandable it may be, I just think they need to give me some warning so I can arrange to be home.

Kind of hard to see how I would be deliberately spending, I have a large overdraft and student loan. They queried my hardship loan payments before, and it took a few months for them to understand the university was not in fact paying me hundreds of pounds each month (if only!).

I do understand their need to be thorough, but I think it's slightly ridiculous that I need to worry about visiting my partner now and then. When I get back next week I'm going to seek advice from the student welfare people who deal with these sorts of things. The only time the local council seem to treat people decently is when you get other more "official" people involved.

Bossyboots

Barcode wrote:

Understandable it may be, I just think they need to give me some warning so I can arrange to be home.

Kind of hard to see how I would be deliberately spending, I have a large overdraft and student loan. They queried my hardship loan payments before, and it took a few months for them to understand the university was not in fact paying me hundreds of pounds each month (if only!).

I do understand their need to be thorough, but I think it's slightly ridiculous that I need to worry about visiting my partner now and then. When I get back next week I'm going to seek advice from the student welfare people who deal with these sorts of things. The only time the local council seem to treat people decently is when you get other more "official" people involved.

I agree with you you should have some warning so you can be home. Unfortunately, they seem to treat everyone like they are doing wrong and even when that is shown not to be the case they are barely civil.

Once they have checked you out, you should find that things settle. Visiting your partner is part of your normal spending pattern but is quite unusual so it is going to ring alarm bells at first. This time next year it should not as it will already be documented that this is part of your life.

Although I was going to complain about our local council tax benefits office, as a means to getting things resolved, you have planted a seed in my mind now about getting more official people involved. This might be a better route for me so I think I am going to tap my boss tomorrow to pull a few strings and get his local councillor buddies to contact me.

black-saturn

Is that 13 weeks abroad in total for the year or 13 weeks at a time?