The Social Security (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 2) Regulations 2002

Amendment of the Housing Benefit (General) Regulations 1987 E+W+S

4.  In the Housing Benefit (General) Regulations 1987 M1 —

(a) in paragraph 10 of Schedule 4 M2 (sums to be disregarded in the calculation of income other than earnings) the following paragraph shall be inserted—

“10A.   Any payment made to the claimant by way of a repayment under regulation 11(2) of the Education (Teacher Student Loans) (Repayment etc) Regulations 2002 M3 .”;

(b) in paragraph 8 of Schedule 5 (capital to be disregarded) at the beginning there shall be inserted “ —(1) Subject to sub-paragraph (2), ” and at the end there shall be added the following sub-paragraphs—

“(2) In a case where the total of any arrears and, if appropriate, any concessionary payment referred to in sub-paragraph (1) relating to any one of the specified payments, benefits or allowances amounts to £5,000 or more (referred to in this sub-paragraph and in sub-paragraph (3) as the “relevant sum”) and is—

(a) paid in order to rectify, or to compensate for, an official error as defined in regulation 1(2) of the Decisions and Appeals Regulations M4 , and

(b) received by the claimant in full on or after 14th October 2001,

sub-paragraph (1) shall have effect in relation to such arrears or concessionary payment either for a period of 52 weeks from the date of receipt, or, if the relevant sum is received in its entirety during the award of housing benefit, for the remainder of that award if that is a longer period.

(3) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (2), “the award of housing benefit” means—

(a) the benefit period in which the relevant sum (or first part thereof where it is paid in more than one instalment) is received, and

(b) where that period is followed by one or more further benefit periods which, or each of which, begins immediately after the end of the previous benefit period, such further benefit periods until the end of the last such benefit period, provided that for any such further benefit periods the claimant—

(i) is the person who received the relevant sum, or

(ii) is the partner of the person who received the relevant sum, or was that person’s partner at the date of his death.”.

Marginal Citations

M1 S.I. 1987/1971; relevant amending instruments are S.I. 1996/1510, 1996/1944 and 2001/2333.

M2 Paragraph 10 was substituted by S.I. 2000/55.

M3 S.I. 2002/2086.

M4 S.I. 2001/1002.