Good morning

Key HA was recently mentioned in a case involving one of its Supported Housing tenants, who, with Key’s help, succeeded in securing a backdate, involving £000’s, which it used to clear rent arrears. Fuelled by that success, they contacted me about another of their tenants whose award had been cancelled in March 2024 because the tenant failed to reply to the Council’s demands for evidence to support a review of his HB award. Despite repeated efforts by Key’s staff, the Council failed to reconsider this cancellation.

Prior to my involvement an experienced and Housing Officer contacted the Council on the tenant’s behalf and was asked to provide a mandate of authority. This was duly provided by email, although the Council later maintained it had no record of receiving this information.

In July 2024, the Council requested further information, which was supplied the same day. It then, inexplicably, asked for a new HB form to be completed. Key immediately complied, even though it disagreed with this development and was committed to following through with its tenant’s request for a backdate to the date of the earlier cancellation. Between August 2024 and June 2025, Key’s staff periodically prompted the Council for a decision but experienced a brick wall of silence.

Because of this, I was asked to intervene and was provided with a critically important timeline of events, emailed the Council, including a mandate of authority from the tenant. I requested a revision of the decision to cancel, as the evidence the Council had previously sought had already been provided by Key HA, albeit later than the Council had expected, and beyond the statutory 1-month period allowed. However, the Housing Benefit regulations provide decision-makers with the discretion to extend the period where there are mitigating circumstances. In my view, there were sufficient grounds, coupled with the Council’s blatant failure to follow through with its earlier exchanges with the Association.

The Council initially failed to reply to my request, but following a further prompt, it conceded the case, resulting in a £12K backdate, more than enough to clear the accrued rent arrears and justify the time and costs used to train its staff on benefit issues, something I promote as “Investing to Save”.

If you are a website member and would like to find out more about we can assist you with tenant advocacy, get in touch via bill@ucadvice.co.uk or phone 07733 080 389.

Regards

Bill Irvine

UC Advice & Advocacy Ltd