The Council Tax Reduction Schemes (Default Scheme) (England) Regulations 2012

22.—(1) Subject to sub-paragraph (3), any payment of £5,000 or more which has been made to rectify, or to compensate for, an official error relating to a relevant benefit and which has been received by the applicant in full on or after the day on which he became entitled to a reduction under this scheme.

(2) Subject to sub-paragraph (3), the total amount of any payments disregarded under—

(a) paragraph 7(2) of Schedule 10 to the Income Support (General) Regulations 1987;

(b) paragraph 12(2) of Schedule 8 to the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations 1996;

(c) paragraph 9(2) of Schedule 5 to the Council Tax Benefit Regulations 2006;

(d) paragraph 20A of Schedule 5 to the State Pension Credit Regulations 2002,

(e) paragraph 11(2) of Schedule 9 to the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2008,

where the award in respect of which the payments last fell to be disregarded under those Regulations either terminated immediately before the relevant date or is still in existence at that date.

(3) Any disregard which applies under sub-paragraph (1) or (2) has effect until the award comes to an end.

(4) In this paragraph—

“the award”, except in sub-paragraph (2), means—

(a)

the award of a reduction under the authority’s scheme during which the relevant sum or, where it is paid in more than one instalment, the first instalment of that sum is received; and

(b)

where that award is followed by one or more further awards which, or each of which, begins immediately after the previous award ends, such further awards until the end of the last such award, provided that, for such further awards, the applicant—

(i)

is the person who received the relevant sum;

(ii)

is the partner of that person; or

(iii)

was the partner of that person at the date of his death;

“official error”—

(a)

where the error relates to housing benefit, or council tax benefit (in respect of any period before 1st April 2013), has the meaning given by regulation 1(2) of the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2001(1); and

(b)

where the error relates to any other relevant benefit, has the meaning given by regulation 1(3) of the Social Security and Child Support (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 1999;

“the relevant date” means the date on which the application for a reduction under this scheme was made;

“relevant benefit” means any benefit specified in paragraph 21(2); and

“the relevant sum” means the total amount referred to in sub-paragraph (1).

(1)

S.I. 2001/1002.