Sorry this is long and dull, but I seem to be in Catch 22. To save you reading, I could do with advice if you know anything about benefits (specifically housing), care (particularly CHC-funded), tenancies, estate agents, moving house, etc etc. I know IABU, but I am so stuck! Please don't flame me - I haven't done anything yet!
I need to move house following a traumatic year after my husband left with my best friend. I haven't really accepted it, but think a new start should help. I am also in an inappropriate house, since a fracture earlier this year left me unable to access the bathroom or bedroom which are both upstairs: I need to move.
I am dependent on 24 hour care (CHC funded) so contacted local funding to ask about moving: apparently it should take about 6-8 weeks to get a package set up in my new city, but that was just a guess. However, the equivalent body in the new city have said that they cannot start the process until I provide them with my new address. Obviously I can't do that, as I can't risk being financially responsible for two tenancies with no clear endpoint, and few properties are advertised so far in advance.
To make it more complicated, I rely totally on housing benefit (for now). I read online that in 'exceptional circumstances' they can fund two properties for up to 4 weeks - i thought that this would enable me to provide the new funding body with an address, whilst giving me a slight financial safety blanket should there be a delay in getting the new package ready, a delay beyond the start of the new tenancy.
However, I've spoken to the benefits department in both cities and they confirm that I can only apply for temporary financial assistance on two properties if I move into the new property straight away. explained that I could not move without care, and that they wouldn't start care without an address, but both benefits offices say there is no flexibility in these rules. If i needed to wait for adaptations to the new property, they could apply the exceptional circumstances rule whilst I remained in the first house, but not when it is a delay in putting care in place that restricts the move.
If i can find a tenancy beginning in the middle/end of August (a suitable tenancy for a wheelchair, and accepting benefits, so not an easy call...), I could then get my post and banking moved to the new address from as soon as the tenancy starts. This would enable me to apply for housing benefit on that new flat (I would ensure significant bodies such as DWP had the new address from ten start date of the new tenancy, mig from the sate I expected to move), but also gives the care agency what should be sufficient time to put care in place. Meanwhile, I continue to live and pay rent at my current property, until able to move to the second, and submit a claim for housing benefit on this first house under the exceptional circumstances rule.
What would you do? This plan is essentially fraud according to the housing advisers (who don't have my name!), as I am telling them I am living in one place but actually living for a short time still in my current house? However, I would paying rent on both properties, and it is for an occasion like this that such exceptional circumstances rule was invented, surely? Albeit I am waiting for 'adaptations' in the form of care provision rather than structural changes. I feel so uncomfortable and this seems so risky, but I don't know how else to move forward? It will be difficult enough to find a suitable wheelchair-accessible flat, prepared to accept benefits, but I can't try and impose an indefinite start date to the tenancy as well?
Sorry if is so long. Any advice appreciated. Essentially I am asking AIBU in considering what amounts to fraud, and given the answer is clearly 'yes', what else could I do?