[2025] UKUT 186 (AAC)

the entitlement criteria for child benefit had never ceased to exist, but HMRC had erroneously superseded the claimant’s entitlement to child benefit in 2019. Notwithstanding this decision, the claimant’s position is that “entitlement towards child benefit have remained continuous given that his youngest daughter still remains eligible”;

the claimant was seeking leave to appeal in respect of the decision by HMRC to terminate his child benefit;

the child benefit had stopped in 2019. The claimant was misadvised to make a fresh claim for child benefit and not lodge an appeal outside the absolute 13 month time limit, which is permissible, against the 2019 decision to terminate his child benefit. He had reapplied and was rewarded child benefit. He had applied for mandatory reconsideration to restore entitlement to child benefit for the missing period [between 29 July 2019 and 24 October 2021]. The claimant had attended three separate FTT hearings about child benefit, the most recent of which had been on 6 June 2024 and had been unfavourable. He had therefore lodged an application for permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal;

section 39A(2)(a) of the SSCBA merely requires a claimant to be “entitled to child benefit” and it is not obligatory that a claimant claims child benefit. The claimant never ceased to be entitled to child benefit and the question of whether or not he claimed that benefit was purely academic;

the claimant’s entitlement to child benefit remained continuous throughout in the light of the age of his youngest daughter; and

HMRC had not issued any correspondence to warrant termination of child benefit