Compliance officer what happens now (really confused!)

[angeleyes182]

Hey everyone please help if you can

 

I had a visit from a compliance officer

 

 

someone close to me has made a bitter phone call about me which isnt true

(am subletting my home so not true as i have a pet).

 

 

I live at home with my young child

i recieve income support and have only been claiming for 6 months while i do my course at college and hopefully go to uni (will not be claiming when i get into uni) .

 

 

I have been seeing my bf for nearly 2 years

he owns his own house and has a job, pays council tax etc

 

 

we see each other nearly every night the odd occasion we dont.

We usually spend 3 nights at mine,

4 nights at his and vice versa.

 

 

He doesn't support me in any way.

I pay my bills he pays his,

we share food but financially im on my own.

 

 

I have no thoughts of [problem]ming the system in any way and can't wait to get to work in the career im heading for.

 

 

I love my boyfriend very much but am not ready to commit and move in with him.

The compliance officer said that we are a unit and that i could be prosecuted

 

 

i can see how they are seeing it but there is no way he could support me and my child and im not totally comfortable relying on someone else to clothe and house my child.

 

 

I feel like we either have to move in together or split up.

I said if its the case of me loseing my benefits i will only see him weekends, they said it wouldnt change anything.

 

 

So im left really confused.

 

 

They also said 'dont let it break you up though maybe its the push you need to make that commitment'

 

They have said we are giving you 3 months to have a think about your situation, in the mean time if anything changes give us a call.

 

 

I signed a piece of paper saying i saw my bf 7 nights a week but we dont support each other financially. Have i anything to worry about?

 

Any advice would be great thankyou x

[ptol]

My interpretation is that the compliance officer does not have the evidence to prosecute you as they are not known for turning a blind eye to benefit fraud, and will review your case in 3 months time.

 

Much as they would like the issue to be that you are "an item" or in a stable relationship, that is not the question you are asked on the application form. The question asks "are you living with someone as though you are married?" Now since you are maintaining separate households, want to maintain your financially independence, and are not yet ready to commit to living together as a single family, i would argue the answer to the key question is still no, but reserve your right for this to change in the future.

 

However, compliance officers and decision makers are not always as generous in their interpretation as i am.

[watchinginvestigation2010]

Regular three nights at yours four at his is concerning.

 

 

Maybe seperate housholds but you are all together in both for the full week.

 

 

People have come on here after a partner lives at seperate address and been accused of living together on basis of partner staying for just three nights at the benefit address alone and been taken to court.

 

 

If they are offering you three months I would consider your choice very carefuly.

as to changing your situation to protect yourselves.

 

 

I am not a benefit officer or with dwp,

just read many of these threads and find the old assumed rule of as long as no more than three nights together as being acceptable,

has been confirmed many times as unfounded, there is no three night rule.

 

 

You are together all week via both addresses so could easily be assessed as a couple and family and they could go after all benefits paid to you while you were so.

[ptol]

As Angel eyes was told, the number of nights together is not a significant factor.

 

The decision criteria are:

 

1. Same household.

2. Sexual relationship.

3. biological parents of a child together.

4. stable relationship

5. how do you appear in public

6. financial arrangements.

 

a good document from a suitable advice centre is here that explains each of these sections in more detail. I am guessing, but Angel eyes probably scores 2 or 3 out of 6 on this.

 

It is however quite clear that if Angel eyes wishes to continue claiming as a single person she will have a bit of a battle to do so. I just believe on the information available to me, that she would be entitled to continue claiming as a single person.

[watchinginvestigation2010]

They could be considered as one family with two addresses deliberately to defraud, thats why I say to be careful.

[angeleyes182]

Thankyou so much for your replies, i am going to citizens advice to ask them. I can definatley see how they are seeing this they see my partner staying with me every night and believe he should provide for me and my son.Its causing problems between us since they have been we dont have a clue what to do. We both love each other very much but arnt ready for that commitment, its a lot for someone to take on having myself and my son move into his home and he having to provide for us both and could change our relationship completley ending with us splitting up and me and my son without a home. I have no intention what so ever of [causing problems] the system and would gladly move in with my partner when i can support myself, i have learnt not to rely on anyone.

Do you suggest maybe just seeing each other at weekends until we are in a position to move in together.

 

Somebody did suggest my partner renting his house out then moving in with me but we dont want to do that either its just more hassle. That seems more like fraud to me but i think they allow that to happen.

[flumps1976]

I completed the living together course back in 1996 as part of my training in the DWP and not much has changed since then! If it was me looking at the case as you have described I would consider on the grounds of probability that you are to be classed as a couple for benefit purposes.

Friends, family and neighbours would consider you to be a couple and also the fact that you spend practically every night together at either property is also a strong indication of being in a stable relationship.

Nobody is denying you the right to have a sex life and actually whether you are a sexually active couple has no bearing on the decision as there are a great number of married couples who no longer have an active sex life but if you spend 3 nights at your home then 4 nights at your boyfriends home then vice versa you are spending a regular pattern of time together, the whole spending 3 nights with a partner is a myth it boils down to if you are observed doing this by a fraud officer for a regular pattern, it will not look good.

Also one other bit of advice if you were classed as a couple for benefit purposes and then decided to only see your boyfriend at weekends in order to keep yuor benefits you could be classed as a ficticious desertion and also if oits still a regular stopping together (even just for 2 nights) then you would still be classed as a couple.

I'm sorry if I missed anything and have gone off track.

[angeleyes182]

So really the only option i have is to break up with him, or move in with him. Can i just stress that i am at college and i know you are probably thinking 'get a job' (have only been on benefits 6 months i was working full time previously to that and am only on benefits until i have finished my college course) but i am trying my hardest to get a career.

 

Am i in danger of being prosecuted whatever route i take?

[jadeybags]

There is something going seriously wrong with benefits at the moment it seems. Probably the goverment hoping a few million will be scared off them. Lets be honest, we are in dire straights financially as a country, people living in poverty can take a back seat for now I expect. That's politics for you though.

The fact you are trying to better yourself by going to college, so that you WONT need benefits in the future wont cut any ice at the moment, the aim right now as we all know is to get people off benefits, full stop.

If I were in your shoes & I am no expert, I would quit the stopping at eachothers houses, just keep it to weekends. One weekend you stop at his, next weekend he stops at yours. Atleast til you finish college or you do decide to live together. Dont be bullied!

If you do all that, that I just suggested, I would be interested to see how they can still claim you are 'living together as if you were married' when he has his home, pays council tax on it, post goes there etc, & you have your place, you bills addressed to you. And would be even more interested to see how they would be able to prosecute you for that! When they say they are giving you 3 months, what I am suggesting is what they are probably hoping to see you do.

They cant expect anymore than that of you, unless as you say you split!

It's getting crazy with benefits these days x

[flumps1976]

If you split up just because you will lose your benefits then you could be considered for a fictious desertion to profit financially. If you move in together then you can make a claim for Tax Credits depending on your boyfriends income, why not check out the tax credits calculator to see what kind of figures you are looking at. Attending college will not make any difference to the decision as ultimately it is your choice to go to college as you want to forge ahead towards university and a career so you could still go to college if you wanted to but with a legitimate tax credits claim. Other people who want to go on to college also have to decide if they can afford to do the course.

[flumps1976]

Just reducing the number of nights you spend together because a referral has been made does not mean that a decision woud be any different as it would still be a regular arrangement and if you were put under surveillance (not saying you will be btw) then that would be used as evidence.

It could go either way.

[jadeybags]

Well that is ridiculous then, & just seems to prove my point that they would prefer the OP to stop claiming any benefits. Since when has any welfare dept had a right to push people into committing to a full on living together as if married relationship?

So OP, you have a few options here, continue as you are & get prosecuted, split completely & be prosecuted because you have only split to be able to still claim benefits, or only wake up together at weekends & be aware that someone will be sat outside your home for weeks on end watching your every move. The third one still sounds the best to me in the long run as they will have no grounds to prosecute. Having your own homes & bills & sleeping together twice a week does not constitute living together, even to a novice like me. Next people will be told they can only claim benefits as a single person if literally single or a couple if you start dating someone you met at the club last weekend. There wont be anything anyone like us can do to stop that happening either.

[angeleyes182]

It honestly makes no sense, i would probably not be entitled to college anymore and even if i was my bf would have to pay for my sons playgroup. Im so frustrated, its alot to put on someone and i really dont think we are ready as a couple to make hat huge step. What if we move in and he decides its not for him, me and my son are stuffed. I am in a lose lose situation, my bf wouldnt be entitled to tax credits so i would have to rely on him to feed my son, clothe my son pay for my tampons every month (we all know child benefit and a small amount of maintenance wont cover these things) i would have to get rid of my car (which i need for uni).

 

I know what they want me to do, they want me to move in with him quit my studies and get a job.

 

Thankyou all for your help ,we have a lot of thinking to do! xx

[Nystagmite]

surely if he's your boyfriend (as you said in your first post) then you are a couple?

[jadeybags]

surely if he's your boyfriend (as you said in your first post) then you are a couple?

There's a huge difference between a boyfriend & someone you live with as if married though?

Angeleyes doesn't want to move in with her boyfriend yet, & lose her independance & basically be reliant on a bloke at the end of the day. And I can totally relate to that. I wouldn't do it until I was totally sure either. When I used to be on income support you were left alone, I dated people, they stopped over at weekends, no one questioned that, they lived with their rents or in their own home, they stopped at mine weekends or I stopped at theirs. They didn't pay towards my food or bills. In fact I never took a bean off them, would even put 30 quid in the pot each when we went out, I wasn't having some bloke paying for me.

I just wonder what's going on these days where you cant even date without some sticky beak sticking their oar in.

It does look like Angeleyes needs to address the stopping over at each others homes in that fashion, atleast until she stops claiming benefits. But apart from that, I dont see why the authorities should need to get involved any further. And it looks like they are saying the same thing.

If they are waiting for her to quit claiming the benefit, that's out of order. They would need a bit more evidence to prosecute her for benefti fraud, especially now they have said their bit.

[Nystagmite]

There's a huge difference between a boyfriend & someone you live with as if married though?

Angeleyes doesn't want to move in with her boyfriend yet, & lose her independance & basically be reliant on a bloke at the end of the day. And I can totally relate to that. I wouldn't do it until I was totally sure either.

 

They've been together 2 years. I don't see how they're not a couple? She's also said that they're together for 7 days a week in some form. If that's not a couple, what is?

 

I just wonder what's going on these days where you cant even date without some sticky beak sticking their oar in.

 

Well, when someone is claiming public money, it is other peoples' business.

[jadeybags]

So they're a couple, in the boyfriend girlfriend term, so what, they're not living together, as in him paying for angeleyes living. Do people automatically have to commit to a full on living together relationship after so many months then? I know people that sleep together a couple of nights a week & have done for years. No financial connection or living together involved. I could go for that, the thought of living with someone would fill me with dread these days! lol

I dont know, my sis did say I can be a bit nieve sometimes & for over half the people that say they're not living together, really are.

But even though I think the compliance officer has been decent in saying sort it out within 3 months, it would be tight to exepct them to either move in together properly & stop claiming benefits or, or, well nothing, that's the only option. I dont actually think they are saying that, but probably me being nieve again, other people with professional experience seem to be implying that's the case. Which points to bullying in my opinion.

[angeleyes182]

I just want to say thanks to jadeybags. Nystagmite its people like me who the states benefits are doing good for! I have only ever claimed income support for 6 months the rest of the time i was working full time!! I was unhappy in my 9-5 weekends off job and want a job in the nhs to do good and help people. Yes i have been seeing my boyfriend for 2 years but he didnt meet my son for 6 of them and we have only just been recently spending every night together. He goes to work 6 days a week so its basically just the company of a night time. It makes me sick the amount of people who are out there milking the system when all i have been having is a foot up. My boyfriend doesnt want me and my son in his house, he doesnt want all my belongings in his house why should he be forced to do that and for me to have to rely on somebody else. Im not sticking a fingers up to all you tax payers because i was one of them and will repay my money im taking now ten fold! iv have been working since i was 12, it may have been for £1.90 an hour in a cafe but i know the importance of work.

Why do people on benefits get stereotyped its not fair, i worked right up until i was 8 months pregnant and went back to full time work when i had to (when the reality is i would have been better off claiming benefits from the start!! but im not that type of person) I worked my guts off putting my poor little boy in nursery from 7.30 - 6.00 just so i didnt have to claim benefits. I found it so hard coming off the benefits, i felt ashamed i had a college place secure so i could have stopped work and collected benefits for doing nothing but i didnt i worked up until college started.

If i could work now i would but its impossible, not all of us are blessed with close family and friends for support. Tell me nystagmite i study college 3 days a week in that time we are expected to do 27 hours home study and complete homework, i am on my own with my son i rely on no one, i already do volunteer work when am i supposed to get a job? The next 3 years are going to be the hardest 3 years of my life working my heart out for a career im desperate for, i dont need rubbish like this and people stereotyping me as a benefit fraud which i am not. I am sorry for spending 7 nights a week with my bf and it has already stopped but we wernt sitting there schemeing together ha ha we are taking all this money because its not like that at all if anything its stressfull having 2 seperate homes.

Maybe i should just risk prosecution and do what you said jadeybags with the only seeing each other at weekends, i just hope it wont effect my career with the nhs xxx

[jadeybags]

And there lies the problem too,people that definitely are not out to defraud anyone, & their situation is relitively new, can & have had their career prospects ruined because they ended up with a criminal record. Years ago they didn't give people criminal records, atleast they didn't my aunt when she worked part time whilst claiming income supoort. An ex boyfriend snitched on her. She went to court, had to pay it back, but didn't get a criminal record. That was about 20 years ago now though.

I definitely think staying together the weekends is the best move, you aren't guilty of anything then & they couldn't use anything to prove you were to prosecute?

Good on you for going out of your way to better yourself, it does seem when we start doing that the problem of benefits being messed up start happening.

Maybe the one for all idea they are thinking about could be a good thing. All these different benefits & computer systems that aren't working properly are creating looooads of over payments these days.

[watchinginvestigation2010]

Sorry but it has to be said, this is not the dwp getting at a single mum trying to better herself, but common sence. Seven nights together at two addresses is not a simple case of boyfriend girlfriend visiting, it is two seperate addresses but one family. We have to remember that no matter what op considers as a family unit, they dwp will be watching, they will monitor the regular pattern of their behaviour and come back to them once have enough or substantial evidence, it will then be up to the courts.

 

A mum or dad can better themselves in college etc... no matter wether a single parent or as one of a couple, this situation is going astray on this thread.

 

I have never read a case on here where it is being argued sharing a house wether same or two residences for a full week can be argued as a single parent being forced into a relationship, sorry. Normally there is cases where op has to be told the three night rule does not exist, but seven nights!!!!!

Edited February 20, 2011 by watchinginvestigation2010

[ptol]

Hi WatchingInvestigation2010,

 

In turn, I think it is actually you that has missed the point. The question on the benefit application form and the wording in law both make it clear that being a couple alone is not enough, hence the extra words "as though you are married" how you interpret these few words is the issue. The DWP has a very broad interpretation, basically, if you sometimes stay overnight...

 

I am arguing is a more narrow interpretation, which actually reflects how committed people in these relationships feel to each other and am prepared to put in the work to back up my view point, to ground it in the statue law, and to make it accessible for people in that situation to trial use these arguments and see how successfully they stand up to scrutiny. If they are successful, to then make it available on this site for more widespread use.

[watchinginvestigation2010]

You are talking tosh and again trying to argue silly terms which change as society changes. We dont have to get married now to be a family unit do we. They refer to time speant together as in living as a family. Last time I looked seven nights a week appeard a funtioning family, goodness sake some working families dont get seven nights a week due to shifts.

 

I say again this op is on very unsteady ground and needs to sort it out as I wouldnt be suprised if they are not under serveillance already.

[jadeybags]

I agree the way it was, was pushing the boundries too far, & they do need to think about just weekends sleeping over, but i'm sure we all agree that if they do that, that is NOT 'living together as if married'?

[jadeybags]

The 3 nights rule thing hasn't been true for yonks either. I remember my sis saying about this years ago when she worked in DWP over payments dept, & she has now been in land registry for about 12 years, so I have no idea why people still think there is this 3 night rule.

As I had said before in a thread a married couple could spend 6 months apart if he works away on the rigs or something, but it doesn't mean they're not 'together'

In fact the 'living together as if married' doesn't even cover the hubby that works away does it. I guess common sense should prevail but some of us are not the brightest bulbs in the pack & really do need to have everything spelt out, it's not easy for claimants & benefit staff is it to get the right messages across. It also doesn't help when different benefits have different rules. Confusing.

[ptol]

Look, having been there, and walked though that path, I can tell you for sure that the way the current rules are implemented effectively tries to force a commitment to financially support each other, before the relationship reaches a point where that level of commitment is felt as appropriate by the couple.

 

In fact, the public commitment to support each other, for better or for worse is one of the key aspects of marriage, and you cannot be legally married without it. If a couple has a relationship, that does not have that kind of commitment to each other, then in my view they are not living together as though married, but just are a couple living together.

 

Clearly, this view is not universally agreed with, but it is an arguable point of view, and does have some basis.