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Neutral Citation Number:
Reported Number:	R(H)9/04
File Number:	CH 1502 2004
Appellant:
Respondent:
Judge/Commissioner:	Other Judges / Other Commissioners/Deputy Commissioners
Date Of Decision:	25/06/2004
Date Added:	27/07/2004
Main Category:	Housing and council tax benefits
Main Subcategory:	liability, commerciality and contrivance
Secondary Category:	Marriage, civil partnerships and living together
Secondary Subcategory:	Living together as husband and wife or civil partners
Notes:	Liability to make payments in respect of a dwelling - payment to former partner - whether in respect of dwelling previously occupied as a couple - whether local authority bound by decision awarding JSA to claimant and wife as a couple The claimant and his wife had separated and under the terms of the separation settlement the former matrimonial home went to his wife. She subsequently sold the former matrimonial home and bought another house. The claimant, who was at risk of homelessness, lodged in that house and paid rent for various periods between March 2001 and 2003. Their divorce was finalised at the end of 2002. In July 2003 the local authority refused housing benefit on the ground that the claimant should be treated as not liable to make payments in respect of the dwelling by virtue of regulation 7(1)(c)(i) of the Housing Benefit (General) Regulations 1987, which applies where a claimant's liability is to his former partner and is in respect of a dwelling which he and his former partner occupied before they ceased to be partners. The local authority decision-maker found that they had not ceased to be "partners" in March 2001, referring to the fact that the claimant's then wife had named him as her partner in her application for council tax benefit made at that time and that they had been paid income-based jobseeker's allowance (JSA) as a couple by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The claimant appealed to an appeal tribunal. The tribunal allowed his appeal, accepting his evidence and that of his ex-wife, and finding that they had been living in separate households at the material time. The local authority appealed to the Commissioner, submitting that the tribunal's decision was perverse and citing R v. Penwith District Council ex parte Menear (1992) 24 HLR 115 as authority for the proposition that it was bound by the JSA decision. Held, dismissing the appeal, that: 1. the tribunal's decision was not perverse (paragraph 19); 2. the effect of ex parte Menear was limited to requiring a housing benefit decision-maker to treat a person on income support or income-based JSA as having no income or capital and therefore automatically entitled, from the financial point of view, to housing benefit (paragraph 36); 3. as the claimant contended that the DWP's decision as to his family status was wrong, the local authority had to reach its own conclusion on that issue, especially as it was unlikely that the DWP's position represented a considered view (paragraph 37); 4. in cases where parallel decisions fell to be made by the DWP and a local authority, the local authority could regard the existence of a considered decision by the DWP as satisfactory evidence of a state of affairs, in the absence of anything to compel a contrary conclusion (paragraph 39).
Decision(s) to Download:	R(H) 9_04 bv.doc