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The First-tier Tribunal’s decision
The First-tier Tribunal’s decision
The tribunal gave a careful and detailed decision, supplemented by a statement of reasons that helpfully refers to the page numbers in the First-tier Tribunal file. It is apparent from the statement of reasons that both parties’ representatives handed in written submissions at the hearing; I have not been able to locate these, but I do not consider that I am hampered in giving my decision by their absence. The parties’ respective contentions are well laid out in their submissions to the Upper Tribunal.
The decision notice stated the tribunal’s decision as follows:
The appeal is refused.
The decision made by the Respondent council on 21.02.2023 and revised on 20.04.2023 in respect of Housing Benefit is confirmed.
[The claimant] was not entitled to Housing Benefit from 14.11.2022.
As a result, [the claimant] has been overpaid Housing Benefit from 14.11.2022 to 8.12.2022 in the sum of £828.88, and from 12.12.2022 2.01.2023 in the sum of £617.91.
Both overpayments are recoverable from [the claimant], although taking account of the background circumstances and reasons as set out below, the respondent council may wish to use its discretion not to recover the overpayments.
The notice contained a further section headed “Reasons” which set out the basic facts and then concluded:
[The claimant’s] representative sought to argue that she should have continued to receive Housing Benefit, as both properties were in the area of the council, and that she continued to satisfy the conditions of entitlement to Housing Benefit, thereby creating a closed period supersession.
The council opposed this argument because the award was terminated on 21.02.2023, before the council became aware of the details of [the claimant’s] new accommodation. Her loss of entitlement to Housing Benefit on the termination of her previous award meant that she was required to claim any future housing costs through Universal Credit under the [Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2014].
I accept that this is the consequence of [the claimant] leaving her previous accommodation, living elsewhere temporarily before moving to her new accommodation, and not notifying the council of the details of her new accommodation before the award was terminated.
However, the circumstances in this case arose because [the claimant] experienced a significant deterioration in her mental health, and, in these circumstances, the council may wish to use its discretion to consider whether the resulting overpayment or any part if it is not recoverable.
The tribunal’s statement of reasons gives, understandably, a more detailed account of the parties’ submissions. It says at paragraph 50 that the council relied on regulations 4, 7, 11 and 13 of the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2001, which I discuss below. Paragraphs 23 and 24 say that the council “clarified the initial appeal response, which had initially indicated that they relied on regulation 14” of the 2001 Regulations, and that the claimant’s representative “made submissions responding to the argument that the decision was made under regulation 14”. It is not clear from this what the council or the claimant’s representative said about regulation 14, either in the written submission or at the hearing. Regulation 14 is not mentioned again in the statement of reasons.
In the “Reasons” section of the statement of reasons the tribunal set out the relevant elements of its findings of fact (which had been set out in an earlier section of the statement) and the parties’ arguments. It is not completely clear at what point the tribunal moved from a recitation of the parties’ submissions to a statement of its conclusions, but on my interpretation of the text the tribunal’s conclusions are stated in paragraphs 60-62. These were that
As a result, [the claimant] had no continuing entitlement to Housing Benefit after the council’s initial decision on 21.02.2023. Pursuant to regulations 5 and 6 of the Transitional Provisions she could not claim Housing Benefit again and was obliged to claim Universal Credit.
The council ended the claimant’s HB claim in respect of the first property having requested information about her new property and any ongoing claim and received no response (paragraph 61).
No information about the claimant’s new situation was provided until at least May 2023, and substantive information only from August 2023; in these circumstances her entitlement to HB had ended and pursuant to the Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2014 she now had to claim universal credit.