Challenging HB office

Challenging the HB office

Often HB Offices make a decision or do something- or fail to do something - that a tenant or a landlord wants to challenge. There are a number of ways to challenge what a Housing Benefit Office does. These are:

Ask the HB Office to look at the decision again- request a revision
Appeal against the decision
Informal negotiation
Working with the HB office on developing good practice - from both parties
Local Authority complaints procedure
A complaint to a Local Councillor
A complaint to the Ombudsman
Judicial review
Suing the council

Is it worth challenging?

Every HB office does sometimes make mistakes (The worst performing HB Office got 21% of its assessments wrong during 2004/5 !!!!!!).
Or it could be that, for your tenant, there are extenuating circumstances that they have not taken in to account. For example, your tenant may have been late in claiming or in supplying information but they may have good cause for their lateness -if a backdate is refused they may wish to challenge this.

Or the HB office may wish to recover an alleged overpayment which may turn out to be incorrect, and which if recovered from the rent account could lead to very large arrears.

Just accepting a decision may mean your tenant loses out on HB to which they are clearly entitled, and that in turn may cause them to fall into arrears. At the very least you can give your tenant information and a standard letter to help them start the process. There is a standard letter to help a tenant start a challenge. There is also a standard authorisation letter.

If the matter to be challenged is an overpayment, refer to the appeals notes under that section.

When can you challenge?

A tenant and (certain landlords in limited cases) can only request a revision or appeal where a decision has actually been made, therefore not all matters can be dealt with this way. Note that ALMOs and Councils cannot appeal against HB office decisions- but they can help their tenants appeal.

For example, if the payment is merely in suspense pending investigations, there has not actually been a decision to cancel the claim, and appeals cannot be made where there has been no decision. So the best thing is not to appeal but to find out what is holding things up and try to get the issues resolved.

The request for a revision or appeal has to be made within specific time limits, usually within a calendar month of the decision being notified. However late requests for a revision or appeal can be accepted within 13 months in special circumstances, and if the HB Office made an official error, then there is no time limit.

If you want to challenge more general matters such as the length of time it is taking to assess claims click here

Who can challenge?

People who have a right to request a revision or appeal are called 'persons affected'. Most decisions by the HB office can be challenged by the person claiming the HB, or by someone acting on their behalf (such as an appointee) but only certain decisions can be challenged by the landlord.

If the HB Office have made an official error then anyone can point this out to them and they should correct it, such as failure to backdate a claim for someone who has reached Pension Credit age on the grounds that the tenant did not show good cause.

What if the challenge fails?

Click here to find out what can be done when a challenge is unsuccessful. (Towards the end of the section.)

General issues

It may be that you do not have a specific case to argue but need to challenge the HB office about their general procedure. Click on the link to find out more.