Waiting on housing benefits for 9 weeks

[angel220]

I had been out of work for 4 months now. I living in a shared house on a tenancy agreement and the landlord doesn't live in same house.

 

After 4 weeks of making my application I was sent a letter asking for more information. I was told that this was the second letter that was sent to me to request the same information, but one of front desk staff later told me that the first letter had been sent to different house number on the same street.

 

I gave in the requested info within a couple of days and it's been 5 weeks from the day I had given them the additional info they needed (so that's 9 weeks altogether).

 

Every week when I phone I have been getting the same reply "We don't give interim payments" (they must have that on recording). I have a copy of the HB/CTB Guidance Manual dated April 09. Would this be the right manual to refer to or is there a new one? According to the manual I should be entitled to an interim payment under regulation 93. So I was thinking whether it would be worth the effort for me to go over and drop a copy of this manual to them with the relevant sections highlighted? If I am to do this, do you think it's ok for me to just give them copies of the the relevant sections and not the whole manual?

[ErikaPNP]

Absolutely. They, in the course of their work, should have access to the guidance manuals and the regulations. You don't even need to photocopy the manual - just write a letter of complaint, referring to the relevant regulation and quote it, enquiring why they are not fulfilling this obligation of the law. Mark it for the operations manager.

 

The regulations are amended on a regular basis. The current regulations are the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006. Every time an amendment is made (and there have been amendments to these regs) you can find by searching on opsi.