Council Tax Benefits.

[Delta]

Hi all.

Sorry I haven't been around much recently, but have been a little busy.

Anyway, to my point, due to my woefully small income, I am currently on Council Tax Benefit, yesterday I received a letter from the 'Support Team' telling me that they want to check I am getting the correct amount and so a Visiting Officer will calling at my house tomorrow (Friday) between 1pm and 5pm. I also need to have at hand proof of income, capital/savings (savings....whats them?) and rent (if I rent my accomodation).

Do I have to allow this visit to take place? Last time they wanted to come it wasn't convenient and I phoned them to say so and sent them all the paperwork to back up my claim. Tomorrow isn't convenient, and to be honest I really don't see why I should have to let anyone into my house, I don't want them looking at my stuff and saying 'oh you could sell this, that and the other'. (not that I have anything worth much money)

Do I legally have to let them in, or can I phone again to cancel it and send them the relevant info again?

Many thanks

ps.... the dog doesn't like people in the house anyway!

[CYNthesys]

Re: Council Tax Benefits.

Why dont you give them a ring and ask them to identify the legislation they are relying on, when wanting to visit you at home

[iancognito]

Re: Council Tax Benefits.

Sorry but I can't see why it's such a problem, if it's inconvenient just phone and change the appointment?

I think everyone on benefits have these visits now and again, certainly my mum and MIL do and last time my mum had one, she actually got an increase in her CT benefit.

It's easy to be suspicious or even obstructive but these people are only doing their job, why make it difficult for them?

[CYNthesys]

Re: Council Tax Benefits.

I think its an invasion of privacy

Always thought that an Englishman's home was his castle

[Minxer]

Re: Council Tax Benefits.

HI,

Its actually a verification visit.

Benefit sections have to by law ensure they check that you are resident in the property that you are claiming at.....this ensures they crack down on fraudulent claims.

It's just a routine visit where they also just check their records of your income etc to ensure it is correct on their system, there is nothing to worry about and they certainly wont be recommending things that could be sold in your house.

I would say that by cancelling visits all the time, it is making it look like you are hiding something.

Hope this info helps.

[Guest]

Re: Council Tax Benefits.

I think its an invasion of privacy

Always thought that an Englishman's home was his castle

Not any more. Thanks to Blair and his ten years of government, 'inviolability of the dwelling house' is gone.

That right dates back to 1604 and a man named Semayne complained that his home had been broken into and his assets seized by the sheriff. The judgment that followed declared: 'The house of every one is his castle.' It went on to say that if a door is open, a sheriff may enter but that 'it is not lawful for the sheriff, on request made and denial, at the suit of a common person to break the defendant's house.'

This 400-year-old principle was removed by Blair with the familiar combination of stealth and a witless lack of respect for what has gone before.

We have witnessed the destruction of the British traditions of liberty, free speech and freedom of thought. Last year alone the Government introduced limitations on free speech, the introduction of identity cards and the ban on smoking even on private premises. We have a government by a party that reinvented itself by being ashamed of its roots and determinedly betrayed the traditions and ideas of its founders. They may well have been right so to do, but they cannot be trusted to hold dear the traditions of others.

On the whim of the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellorship has been neutered, removing a voice of law from the cabinet. This government has repealed the law on double jeopardy. With ASBO's, it has sent individuals to prison on hearsay evidence for things that are not even criminal. It has created a centralised register held by the government on all citizens and proposes to force them to have ID cards. It has formed a police force with unprecedented powers of arrest - the Serious Organised Crime Agency - over which the Home Secretary has authority no predecessor has previously enjoyed.

Through its control orders, it has introduced a system of deprivation of liberty without trial on the say-so of the executive. It has passed the Civil Contingencies Act that allows a minister to override any statute after the calling of a state of emergency and now there is the Regulatory Reform Bill, which has been described as 'the abolition of parliament bill.' This gives gauleiter-like powers to ministers which we are blandly told will not be used. The government has decided to abolish habeas corpus, freedom from arrest, freedom from surveillance.

The government has allowed the retention by the police of DNA details of thousands of people who have never been so much as accused of any crime. The government has introduced anti-terrorism stop-and-search powers that are constantly being misused, such as when the elderly Walter Wolfgang was ejected from the Labour conference or when Maya Ann Evans was arrested and prosecuted under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which bans unauthorised demonstrations within one kilometre of Westminster, after reciting the names of British soldiers killed in Iraq outside the gates of Downing Street.

From March of 2006, the Courts Act 2003 allowed magistrates to appoint a fines officer who may break into a private home to seize goods, clamp and seize vehicles and increase fines by 50 per cent. Astonishingly, these radical changes which sweep away the principle that your home is inviolate are not part of the Courts Act and were never debated in parliament. The measures were smuggled into law in the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 and so parliamentary scrutiny on the crucial question of forced entry in civil cases was avoided. A typical Blairite tactic.

You have to understand that Tony Blair's government was not merely mad and incompetent, but that also rotten to the core and has not the slightest respect for British liberty and the individual.

Of course, Brown is even worse.

Having said the above, nobody is trying to break into your house, you should keep the appointment. Local Authorities have teams set up to help people ensure that they are claiming all that they are entitled too. They are creatures of statute, if it's in the law, they have to do it.

This is one of the things they have to do.

[stevokenevo]

Re: Council Tax Benefits.

cheezy crisps, remind me not to get on the wrong side of you ;-)

[Sapphire]

Re: Council Tax Benefits.

And here endeth the Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Cetelco Party ............... blimey Cet I enjoyed reading that one hun !!!!

Oh and when the benefits people arrive just make sure they wipe their feet on the way in !

sapphire