The Housing Benefit (General) (Amendment No. 5) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations further amend the Housing Benefit (General) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1987 (“the Housing Benefit Regulations”).

Regulation 2 amends regulation 97 of the Housing Benefit Regulations to permit offsetting of amounts deducted in the process of calculating a recoverable overpayment under regulation 104.

Regulation 3 revokes regulation 100 of the Housing Benefit Regulations. The power of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (“the Executive”) or the Department of Finance and Personnel to recover overpayments is set out in section 73 of the Social Security Administration (Northern Ireland) Act 1992.

Regulation 4 replaces regulation 102 with a new regulation. The substituted regulation sets a standard maximum rate of recovery of overpayments where the Executive chooses to recover from on-going entitlement to housing benefit being paid to a person as a claimant. A higher rate of deduction may be applied when deducting from housing benefit payable to a claimant who has been implicated in fraud in respect of that overpayment or where specified income or earnings disregards have been applied in calculating the housing benefit.

Regulation 5 replaces regulation 104 of the Housing Benefit Regulations with a new regulation which specifies more precisely the deductions to be made in calculating a recoverable overpayment.

These Regulations do not impose any charge on business.