UC HC refusal to backdate to date of claim when claimant not aware they had not been reported

We have a client who claimed UC in July but had reported his existing benefit income as actual income so was not receiving any amount, until September when DWP were notified of the error and his UC was backdated to July.

Following this, DWP asked via the journal if he had any housing costs as none had been reported. He submitted details of these in October and they were paid from this date. However, they have refused to backdate this to the date of claim in July, since they were not reported at date of claim.

Does anyone have any experience of a successful challenge in this scenario? Client relies on friends to manage the UC award/journal as he cannot read or write and he was not aware that the housing costs were not reported when the claim was made in July.

Thanks in advance

Hi Liam - see CPAG (Martin Williams) advisce re this issue below:

Martin Williams looks at some common problems with the housing element of universal credit (UC).

Housing costs not reported at initial claim

CPAG has seen cases where, when making a new claim for UC, the claimant has failed to report her/his housing costs. That seems to have happened in the past because the online form asked ‘do you pay rent?’ For many claimants in receipt of housing benefit (HB) covering their full rent, the appropriate answer seemed to be ‘no’ (and, indeed arguably, in particular for local authority tenants whose HB the form of a rent rebate, that answer could be regarded as correct). Now the form also asks whether the claimant receives HB.

The approach of the decision maker in such cases has sometimes been to only add the housing costs element of UC from the start of the assessment period in which the housing costs are first notified.

This is wrong, because the initial decision on entitlement to UC, in deciding that the claimant did not have housing costs, was simply wrong on the facts. A decision which is wrong can be challenged by way of revision (‘mandatory reconsideration’) for any reason.1 A late application for revision made within 13 months of the decision challenged, even when there are no good reasons for lateness, will still give rise to a right of appeal once it has been refused.2 In such an appeal, the tribunal stands in the shoes of the decision maker who made the original decision and can give any decision that decision maker could have done.3 So the tribunal can decide for itself what the facts were at the date of claim. Importantly, the reasons why the claimant did not state that s/he had housing costs are irrelevant here – it is a simple question of whether s/he had the liability to pay rent at the start of the award or not. The DWP maker is wrong thinking that these are ‘change of circumstance’ cases where the change has been notified late – if that were right, then the date from which the change can take effect is indeed the start of the assessment period in which it is notified.4However, here there is no change of circumstance, rather there is a change in the information known to the decision maker.

Usually when I have pressed UC on anything like this, they have paid up. Typically what has happened is that the case manager has reported the “change” on their end but they cannot authorise the backdating without it going to a decision maker. If it gets sent off to a decision maker you will often get a reply back which is essentially a snotty template letter about how your client failed to report the change but, on this occasion, they are being let off and the change is being backdated but it musn’t happen again.

I have never had to press the point, but in principle it is strongly arguable that your client is making a (late) request for any grounds revision of the original entitlement decision. If DWP wouldn’t deal with the late revision request, you could lodge an appeal which would succeed solely on the basis that the entitlement existed and without reference to your client’s reasons for delay.

Thanks for your prompt responses both of you (and of course the info from Martin), much appreciated.