Child Benefit

[mrbrooks]

Hi all, first off I would just like to say, I hope I have posted in the correct place!

Second I would like to say; I am somewhat clueless with these benefits matters so please excuse me if I sound daft…

Ok, so, I have a buddy who has recently (Aug 1st 2016) has had his son (12 years old) living with him (he was with him before this date but this is the ‘official’ date after the child’s mother conceded it was probably a good thing he lived with his dad) as he was unhappy living with his mother and was struggling at school and socially, he was suffering from severe social anxiety and bullying at home and some bullying at school, so asked his dad if he could come live with him. His mother threw up a stink (understandable) and basically would not easily let go (again understandable).

However, this has cause some issues for my buddy with child tax credits and benefits like housing and council tax. Basically, he made a claim for the benefits mentioned above (and other related benefits, not sure of the full list but can check if folks need more info?) and was supporting his son on his own benefits and support from friends and family, also he had a food bank voucher and had some food credits from a local charity, and his mother had paid the rent and council tax.

Also, he is currently and has been prior to this looking for work and is attending interviews but he has had trouble with this as he could not afford to pay for the travel upfront to attend some of the interviews because he had these sudden extra outgoings to attend to and was short some weeks. In this time his family have helped with other things such as helping get his son to school and back, paid for school uniforms and other related items.

He has received this letter (see attached) a couple of weeks ago citing that his ex-partner was entitled to up to 56 days’ worth of the benefits back payment as this is the law. The problem I see here and the problem he is obviously somewhat upset about, is that his son was not with his mother and has not been for some time now, she had no additional expense whilst he did and yet she has somehow been granted benefits, for a child she has had no hand in caring for in this period.

In this time he has had no child related benefits and little support from the authorities (apart from his own personal benefits payments and food vouchers) such as housing benefits, council tax benefit etc…
So, my question(s) to the forum are these.

In your opinion(s) Is there any mileage in pursuing this matter? Personally, though I wholeheartedly believe this is wrong of them to have come to this conclusion, I do feel like he is probably going to get stonewalled, despite the fact there is irrefutable proof that his son was with him and not his mother? How can this be right?

If forum-ites believe it is worth pursuing the matter, can any of you folks in the know, throw any advice our way, that may be able to help me to help him tackle this? I am lost on this subject matter and feel that the authorities have made a poor decision here and cannot see how the mother is entitled to anything from when the child was officially with his father.
We have downloaded the SSCS5/A but have not begun to fill it in yet.

I look forward to responses from you all and thank you all in advance for even taking the time to look at this for me as I know many of the folks here are busy themselves.

Thanks and kind regards

mrbrooks

[Kati]

Re: Child Benefit

to LB [MENTION=82672]mrbrooks[/MENTION]

If I was in this position, I would definitely be appealing the decision :sad:

When asking for a Mandatory Reconsideration (which this letter is a reply to) did your friend send in proof that his son was living with him prior to the 'official' date? From your first post it sounds (to me at least) that the mother would have still been receiving CB until the father put in his claim ... which should (by rights) have been going towards supporting the child. turn2us.org has a handy guide to appealing HMRC/CB decisions here - https://www.turn2us.org.uk/Benefit-g...on-New-process

An appeal is a way of telling the benefit office that you think a decision is wrong.You must have asked for the decision to be looked at again and received the mandatory reconsideration notice first.
When you appeal a decision, it will be looked at by an independent tribunal, which is completely separate from the benefit office.
Action

You must make your appeal in writing.
You must have asked for the decision to be looked at again and received the mandatory reconsideration notice first.
If you appeal on the official appeal form this can help you to give all the information that is needed.

IMO, it's got to be worth a try

...........................

Is your friend on either JSA or UC (benefits)? If he is, it might also be an idea for him to chat with a DWP advisor about altering his 'claimant commitment' to reflect his having to care for his son now (he might be able to lessen his weekly 'duties').

Good luck!!

K xx

[mrbrooks]

Re: Child Benefit

Hi Kati thanks for the reply, I am not sure which benefits he is on to be honest, I will check!!!

It all sounds very unfair and I have been reading more stuff (plus the link you posted) about the appeal process and will hopefully get something together...got to go back out now, but will post more later...

Thanks again...

mrbrooks

[Kati]

Re: Child Benefit

Hi Kati thanks for the reply, I am not sure which benefits he is on to be honest, I will check!!!

It all sounds very unfair and I have been reading more stuff (plus the link you posted) about the appeal process and will hopefully get something together...got to go back out now, but will post more later...

Thanks again...

mrbrooks

by all means come back here and ask for advice (you've got me interested now so I'm going to do some 'digging' regardless ) ... if you tag me (type [MENTION=49370]Kati[/MENTION] in a post) I'll get a notification and pop back on :nod:

Sending good wishes to your mate too! K xx

[mrbrooks]

Re: Child Benefit

Hi @Kati, thank you for the support its great to know someone is rootin' for ye, haha...

I have to be honest, I am really struggling to grasp the logic here with some of this...

For example, in the Mandatory Reconsideration Letter it states:

When a person and child or qualifying young person stop living together, they can be treated as still living with each other until the absence exceeds 56 days in any 16 week period.

So this is my first 'misunderstanding' shall we say. If a child or qualifying young person has moved out of their current home and into the 'new' home with the 'new' adult, then how exactly can they be treated as still living with each other when there is proof the child or qualifying young person is no longer resident at the address they were living and is now resident at their new address? I am having trouble seeing how this works exactly. To me it is quite simple, child moves out xx/xx/xxxx date and any social payments associated with said child, should cease with immediate effect or at the least within a reasonable amount of time, let’s say 7 days, and any social payments associated with the child’s residency should then be transferred and awarded to the 'new' parent or carer.

In this same section it states: This mean that Miss XxXx can be treated as having Child living with her up to xxxx date and including xxxx date.

Just how exactly do you parse this logic? If the child is not resident, then the child is not 'living' with her, conceptually or otherwise, there is just no way around this fact. Thus, how can she be 'treated as having the child living with her',? It is impossible to treat her as 'having the child living with her', because, the child is NOT actually living with her.

This is just such a ridiculous statement it makes my head hurt and my eyes bleed. Just imagine this logical argument elsewhere, yes your honour, I normally stay in bed until about 8AM so despite me not actually being in bed @4AM on said morning and being seen on a camera in the town centre blowing my guts over the new flower displays, you may in fact 'consider' me as in bed, as this is my normal practice and therefore you can simply treat me as still in bed at this time and in fact, I am in bed right now your honour because the date of my initial arrest is different from my charge date, this is despite the fact you can see and hear me talking to the court and I must advise the court this, nor prior proof, is to be taken as evidence that i was in fact elsewhere, other than my bed, on both dates and today, thus, I am clearly not responsible for said damage to lovely daisies and tulips and is abundantly apparent that you should 'consider' me as 'not out of bed yet' and therefore I cannot be charged as I am not actually here...yeah they would almost certinly ask for a mental health assessment, probably...

Beyond this move out date and beyond the 'reasonable' time frame the 'other' parent or carer should get nothing more for the child, I am struggling to see how someone can be awarded social payment for a child that no longer lives with them and has not done so for over 6 weeks. I can find no explanation for this at this time.

Another statement I have issues with: When we received your claim for child xxx was already receiving child benefit...Child benefit cannot be paid before the week a claim is received when benefit has already been paid to another person whether or not that person was entitled to it.

Ok so, I get that sometimes these things 'cross over' and the admin needs to be done and a change of direction takes time to achieve, fairynuff, but, again, if said child is no longer with said recipient, then how are they legally entitled to anything? The child is resident elsewhere, in this case with his father who was at that time struggling to make ends meet, and yet his ex-partner, who is not actually entitled to the payment, has somehow not only got this 1-2 weeks of 'grace' whether she is entitled to it or not, and then been awarded 6 weeks’ worth of payments she is also (IMO) not entitled to as the child was not in her care. In the end the parent who had not finger nor hand in the child’s care for that 2 months, got almost all the social payments associated with the child, despite the HMRC/Benefits and Credits Office knowing full well he no longer resided with her. How on earth can that be the correct decision? It just plain makes no sense to me at all.

So despite my friend having his son since late June/early July he actually did not receive ANY benefits for his son until 1st September, the payments for June, July and August went to his ex. so slap me If I sound crazy (metaphorically of course) but this just seems so unjust, so wrong, it makes no sense on any regular level, I just cannot fathom how anyone could come to such a decision based on fact and reality.

The only conclusion I keep arriving at, and this may just be my frustration venting, is that the case workers basically could not be arsed looking at the case properly, they just ticked it off as a 'standard' case, looked no further than the first page type of attitude, and have rebuffed the initial request for reconsideration because otherwise it would show up just how poorly they have handled this case. I have come across this a number of times (In financial claims mostly) where you ask for a 'review' and they resolutely promise you they have done a 'thorough' investigation and found nothing in your favour, yet when you are a day away from court they suddenly find all this information, that was on a 'different' screen, or they 'looked into it personally' is another one I have heard and realised they did owe you £10k after all...which only proves to show that my/our concept of the meaning of thorough is wholly different from theirs,

On top of this, I have read something elsewhere from someone who claims to be an ex case worker for the DWP and Benefits n Credits office who stated that this reconsideration notice is usually final. My problem with this again is it makes no sense, if this is final, then why offer an appeal process, why bother with it?

To me it seems the system itself is severely flawed, it is most likely at the least 'out of date' and 'out of sync' with the way things are today, It would appear to me the main thrust of their MO is 'lets just tick them off with the 'standard' approach and get them shipped out' attitude and in my opinion is basically very unfair to the child and the 'new' parent as they have struggled for almost 2 months to discover that the funds they where hoping would come to help them out, have been given to the 'other' parent for basically not looking after the child, its just bizzare to me.

This case, and I have no doubt a slew of other similar cases, is clearly not based on any traceable logic (not by regular people at least) nor the 'right' thing, (justice may be too strong a word, but you know what I mean I am sure), it is clear to me that wherever the child is, the social support payments should follow, and this 56 days nonsense (and that is exactly what it is to me) is just a cop out. If there is some issue with the childs residency then by all means freeze payments if this is a suitable approach, or make payments to the carer who currently holds residency with the child until such matters are settled and reconciled, and this period of course could no doubt be useful in some cases where the residency is still in question or not settled as mentioned above, but to simply award someone a payment, blindly, because te guidelines say they 'can' rather than they 'should', and this in the face of a bucket full of evidence that the child is no longer with said parent/carer seems like borderline lunacy to me.

The fact that they can legally entitle someone to payment they clearly should not be getting and refuse payment to the perso n actually caring for the child, is just bizzare to me...They have the proof, they can check with authority such as the NHS Trust to see the child is registered and has been seen by a doctor in that time frame in this area, he has been attending school and his name was registered with his school back in August, he has been attending the local kids support groups (like a youth club with 'advisors'), since late june, who have been chatting to him and providing support session for the child, and helping him and helping his dad adjust and find support in other areas such as for his social anxiety, the child clearly has a life here, and has for some months.

Anyway, frustration rant over...haha...

thanks again

mrbrooks