Following on from our recent Housing Benefit guides we will hopefully tackle another today.
A number of clients have had partners join them from abroad or other change of circumstances while they have had an appeal on going.
Regulation 20(9) of the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001/1002 as amended) provides :
The relevant authority may discontinue action on an appeal where the notice of appeal has not been forwarded to the First-tier Tribunal and the appellant or an authorised representative of the appellant has given written notice that the appellant does not wish the appeal to continue.
Regulations are quiet on the matter otherwise. We have had some success with the pre-action letter below. However keep in mind that the change of circumstances haves to be significant enough to warrant a new application, (generally we would say spouse or change from work to benefits).
As appeals can take a significant amount of time, depending on the local Authority and sometimes if a change has occurred it is faster to make a new application while the appeal is ongoing. However we would suggest doing an eligibility test to ensure the client is eligible to avoid another appeal.
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