Thread: Community Care Grant/Social Fund Loan/Crisis Loan.....HELP!!!!

A claimant has a certain time limit in which to return an offer letter before the offer is withdrawn. (Not certain on the time limit). How do you know they lost the offer letter? Did they admit to receiving it? If they did admit to losing it and you have that in writing, you're laughing. If you sent the offer letter back via another office and have proof of this, you're laughing. If not, if you sent it in normal post and they are saying they haven't RECEIVED it back from your girlfriend, it may well have been lost in the post - it happens far too often unfortunately. If you sent it recorded delivery, you will have a tracking number which you can use to check if it has been delivered and who signed for it. If it has not been delivered your complaint needs to be raised with Royal Mail. If you raise a complaint with them and the letter was not sent by trackable means (ie recorded delivery) they will send a form to the Social Fund to complete with your details and asking if Social Fund received the letter. Social Fund will complete the form and return it to Royal Mail.

The Social Fund offer of a Crisis Loan (which is what it would have been as declined community care grants can be considered for a crisis loan) that they made to you whether or not they received the form back from you should still show on their system as every application and decision is recorded on computer unless it is a clerical claim.

The reason for refusing the second Crisis Loan will most probably be because it is considered a repeat application - an application made for the same items to cover the same period of time within 3 months of the last application - these "repeat applications" within 3 months are always refused.

What you can do is ask for a review of the latest loan by writing to the office which made the decision. The only problem is a review can take weeks to be considered especially at this time of year. The review is the only way to go as any additional applications made for crisis loan/community care grant as a repeat application will be refused.

OR if your girlfriend has been receiving income support for 26 weeks or more, she MAY qualify for a budgeting loan. (this would not be considered a "repeat application" as budgeting loans follow a criteria different to crisis loans and community care grants).

Hope this information helps a bit