The Housing Benefit (Abolition of Benefit Periods Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2004

Date on which an award of benefit is to end

11.  After regulation 65 of the Housing Benefit Regulations(1) (date on which entitlement is to commence) there shall be inserted the following regulation –

“Date on which housing benefit is to end

65A.— (1) Subject to paragraphs (2) and (3), a claimant’s entitlement to housing benefit shall cease at the end of the benefit week in which entitlement to income support or income-based jobseeker’s allowance ceases where –

(a) the claimant or his partner was entitled to and in receipt of income support or an income-based jobseeker’s allowance or that claimant and his partner were entitled to and in receipt of a joint-claim jobseeker’s allowance and that entitlement has ceased;

(b) the entitlement to income support or income-based jobseeker’s allowance has ceased by reason of the claimant or his partner –

(i) commencing employment as an employed or self-employed earner;

(ii) increasing their earnings from such employment, or

(iii) increasing the number of hours worked in such employment;

(c) the claimant had been entitled to and in receipt of income support or income-based jobseeker’s allowance for a continuous period of at least 26 weeks before the day on which his entitlement to income support or income-based jobseeker’s allowance ceased, and for the purposes of this sub-paragraph –

(i) a claimant satisfies the conditions of this sub-paragraph if he has been entitled to and in receipt of a combination of income support and a jobseeker’s allowance for at least 26 weeks;

(ii) references to the claimant include references to his partner;

(iii) a reference to the claimant being entitled to and in receipt of a jobseeker’s allowance shall include a reference to the claimant and his partner being entitled to and in receipt of a joint-claim jobseeker’s allowance, and

(d) that work, increased earnings or, as the case may be, increased hours is expected to last at least 5 weeks or more.

(2) In the case of a claimant to whom regulation 6(2) of the Income Support (General) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1987 applies (persons not treated as engaged in remunerative work), entitlement to housing benefit shall cease where –

(a) the claimant was entitled to and in receipt of income support or an income-based jobseeker’s allowance and that entitlement ceases;

(b) the entitlement to income support or income-based jobseeker’s allowance ceases by reason of the claimant commencing employment as an employed or self-employed earner, and

(c) that work is expected to last 5 weeks or more,

and that entitlement shall cease at the end of the benefit week in which entitlement to income support or income-based jobseeker’s allowance ceases.

(3) Paragraph (2) shall be omitted with effect from 25th October 2004.”.

(1)

Regulation 65 was amended by regulation 4(3) of S.R. 1990 No. 137 and regulation 12(a) of S.R. 2003 No. 294