NEED HELP - CAN ANYONE TELL ME???

[coweyes]

We submitted a claim for housing benefit in January 2007 - the claim was accepted but in March they suddenlly started requesting bank statements from two years ago from old acounts. Can anyone tell me exactly what they are LEGALLY entitled to have from us?
I ask because they have given us a deadline of 17th May to get this info to them and yet and the bank cant get the info to us until 23rd june.

BUMP

No-one at all then???

THAT WOULD BE A NO THEN????

sorry don't know, but maybe they are checking to make sure you haven't had a large sum of money in the bank for the last 2 years, if your bank can't do it till then, just ring the benefits and explain, they should be ok with it.

When I applied for council tax benefit I had to supply all sorts of paperwork to them. Bank statements, husband's business account statements, savings, shares. I figured that they needed confirmation that what I was putting on the form was correct, and rightly so.

The first thing I'd do is ring and ask why they wanted that information, and then I'd explain that I have asked for them the bank can't get them to you until 23rd June.

If you don't contact them they may well stop your benefit.

The point is surfermum - they have stopped the benefit - without even notifying us. I have called a total of 14 times and the woman I need to speak to is never available. I have attempted to speak to four of her colleagues and none of them can say why she has decided that she suddenly wants more info - all say I need to speak to her. I have written to her explaining the situation with the info for the old bank accounts and she has not responded.
At the start of the joint claim - I did send absolutely everything that they asked for and they started to pay. Now they are asking for statements from three bank accounts that were closed in 2003, May 2005 and September 2005, plus one that simply does not exist.

dh works for housing and coucil tax benefits and he said you need to contact your housing benefit office and ask for an extension explaining that the bank cannot supply this info untill 23rd june.They are legally entitled to ask for bank statements.i have asked dh about this and i will try and relay what he has told me, He said that benefits agencys use a matching service and it may be that you have an old account that is no longer being used but they need proof of this, it could be if you have had £6000 or more in savings could affect the claim, it is hard to say why they need this without knowing the specifics,If you want I can get him to post later when he gets home, but i dont know how much you want to post on here.

Thanks Leander - BTW what's a matching service????

By the way - I am also Coweyes.

cant say for definate cause i cant remember what dh said but i think allbenefit agencys can crossmatch claims and if a bank account is mentioned in one claim but not another then they will ask for details of that account even if it has been closed.Dont quote me on that but i will ask dh to clarify it when he gets home.

I have no problem posting stuff on here. DH was made redundant in 2005 and we sold our house before we moved here. We seperated last year becasue he had spent all the money (and I mean £60,000 thousand+) and was up to his eyeballs in debt. We got back together in January this year when we put in the joint claim. We have done everything above board with the housing benefits dept. and they have known all about the reasons behind our seperation from day one (May 2006) so why now and why will no one speak to us or respond to our letters?

That would be useful. But we have never, ever claimed any benefits before and this claim is only for housing benefit.

They might want some sort of proof where all the money has gone, You know what i am just speculating here.I will ask dh to come on here after the kids are in bed around 8 ish

Thanks again - I will check later. I will just add that I have explained the situation to them many, many times and my argument is "If DH can't justify to me where all the money went, how can we prove to them where it went?" We do not have receipts for everything and some of the loans that he repaid were to some 'dodgy' characters to say the least.

He talks to me about his job and i think im listening but now i think my eyes must glaze over and im thinking shoes and handbags

I am a intervention officer not an assessor so I am a bit rusty on all the regs but here goes. Legally speaking they are entitled to ask where the money has gone and if possible ask you to provide proof (receipts, loan repayments etc) because the capital limit for HB/CTB is £16,000. If you don't know where the money has gone then your husband is going to have to give some answers, if not to you then to the HB dept directly, it could end up being as easy as him making a written statement. As long as the money can be seen leaving the account in small sums on the bank statement then the assessor dealing with this may accept that it has been frittered away but it depends on the size of the withdrawals, and this will be down to the individual assessor, basically if you are dealing with an arse they can make your life hell. As far as dodgy loan repayments go, I couldn't say since I have had no experience of this and I would have to check with an experienced assessor. The best advice I can give you is if you get no joy from the assessor go to their boss and make a written complaint about them. As far as suspending benefit goes whilst they have the right to do this they have a legal obligation to notify you that your benefit is being suspended and inform you of the reason why, this is a very important point since a number of cases in my office have been thrown out of the appeals court in favour of the clmt because the assessor failed to put the reasons on a notification letter, your circumstances may not be exactly the same but it is a point worth remembering. The point about the date the info is needed by is as Leander said the HB dept can extend this if the request is resonable, so if you have or can get anything in writing from your bank stating that they can't provide it until June then this would be a reasonable request, then take it to the HB dept . In our office we use a HB computer system called Academy, this has a notes feature on it so anybody who deals with your claim should write on notes what what they have done on your claim and why they have done it, you are also legally entitled under the freedom of information act to ask in writing for a copy of these notes, next time you speak to someone ask what system they are using, if its academy get them to read the notes page. We also use a document imaging system so try to get as much written info on this, if you have to go to appeal it will look a lot worse for the assessor who is behaving very unprofessionally. The only reasons I can think of for her not responding to you are that she has already referred the claim to her fraud dept and they have asked her to leave it alone or she doesn't know how to deal with this claim and is hoping to nil qualify you by saying you didn't provide the info in time. I would also recommend that you get the Law Society/CAB on the case. Hope this helps

Thanks for the info - very useful. I'll update as soon as I know anything. Thanks again.

Hi joash, i will keep this on my watch list if you need anymore info just ask.

I did actually send a letter (hand delivered to their office) to the benefits dept last week (wednesday 9th) informing them that we needed an extension to the deadline (including the reasons why). We also informed them that we are now resorting to selling personal belongings in an attempt to make some money towards the rent, as well as listing a number of questions that we would like answering. These are;

1. Why we were not informed that our housing benefit had been suspended, or would be suspended until they received the information?
2. Why was this information not requested at the start of our initial joint application, or even on my application as a single person in May/June 2006?
3. How are we expected to pay our rent and other living expenses whilst we wait for the information to arrive?
4. As my husband cannot tell me where some of the money has gone - how can we ?prove? that we have no money secreted away anywhere?
5. What will happen once we are asked to leave this property (as will hapen once we cannot pay the rent)?
6. Does this sudden suspension of benefit have anything to do with a colleague of the person dealing with this claim with whom I had a personal relationship last year (which did not end amicably) and should therefore not even be having anything at all to do with my claim?

Anyway - I asked them to respond by yesterday, either in writing or by telephone. Up to now - NOTHING. I have attempted to call them again today (4 times) and no-one is answering the telephone. I have gone through the main switchboard and through their direct line and still NOTHING!!!

So now I cannot find out if we have the extension, nor am I any the wiser re; their reasons behind this. So my next step is to send another letter (hand delivered again), plus information listing all our extra expenditure (furnishing & decorating this house, etc) for the past two years as well as a list of all income and expenditure. Along with this will be yet another request for information and notification that we are also writing to the head of the benefits section with an official complaint.

As we have no acess to a CAB locally,we also have an appointment with our local MP who is also trying to get information from them ready for our appointment next friday.

RIGHT - thats it. After spending the last few weeks being ignored and no responses to letters - I have filled in a complaints form and initiated a formal complaint against the woman who is supposed to be dealing with our claim. Just have to sit back and wait now.

i used to be an investigation officer for HB dept and they have to notify you in writing within 14 days of any suspension of your benefit. this is the first point you can make, they can ask for proof of anything including financial details in relation to your claim but they should not be asking for details prior to your claim for benefit. the only details they should need are proof that the accounts are closed and that you no longer have the funds. They can wait for details to come in. I used to give my durect line and ask people to call or even just leave a message if they could not get the info and i would automatically extend the deadline for them, the way you have been treated is disgracful and i would definately complain, but don't just leave it at that, go and see your local councillor if you have no joy, believe me the department jumps when they speak. Also they have to respond to your complaint within so many days, ours was within 7 days so check this out. To just not contact you is not on and we would have been roasted over this.

Thank you deembee (& Leander& DH too). Still nothing in the mail from them today and no -one has returned my calls. I didn't think that they should be asking for info from before the claim. But anyway - we have nothing to hide and have been 'above-board' with them from day one. They wanted 'proof' of how we've spent the money over the past two years - so yesterday I have sent them lists of absolutely everything that we have spent dating back to (July 2005) two months before we moved here, plus a lsit of all the my DH's debts that we paid, etc - let them sort it.
I also put in an offocial complaint yesterday and we have the meeting with the MP next friday ...she 'aint' pleased!!!

Well we at least know that some sections of the council work efficiently. We have just received a letter from the complaints dept. detailing who will be dealing with the complaint, when we should expect to hear from them and what to do if we are still disatisfied with the result. So, we now have to sit back and wait to see what happens.