The standard Housing benefit notification letter used by Nottingham City Council misses vital information required by law.
The law requires that certain information, including details of appeal rights, is included in all decision notices sent to those who have applied for Housing and/or Council Tax Benefit.
However, Nottingham City Council's notices lack this info. They claim that it used to be provided on the back but 'recent amendments' have led to this gone missing. They claim that they have a system where a separate A4 sheet is added manually but none of those that I received included this.
I also wonder if the problem is that 'recent' as a friend of mine shoed me hers from early last year and the information was missing then.
More details here (link is to most recent posting, there are links included in the article to two earlier postings)
http://ncclols.blogspot.com/2008/12/those-hb-decision-notices-again.html
However, a silver lining is that if you have received one of these notices without the required information and for one reason or another you missed your chance to appeal, the fact that the appeal details were left off should mean it is virtually automatic that a late appeal is accepted, as long as no more than 13 months have passed since the date of the decision.
If this applies to you you're best to get advice immediately.
However, Nottingham City Council's notices lack this info. They claim that it used to be provided on the back but 'recent amendments' have led to this gone missing. They claim that they have a system where a separate A4 sheet is added manually but none of those that I received included this.
I also wonder if the problem is that 'recent' as a friend of mine shoed me hers from early last year and the information was missing then.
More details here (link is to most recent posting, there are links included in the article to two earlier postings)
http://ncclols.blogspot.com/2008/12/those-hb-decision-notices-again.html However, a silver lining is that if you have received one of these notices without the required information and for one reason or another you missed your chance to appeal, the fact that the appeal details were left off should mean it is virtually automatic that a late appeal is accepted, as long as no more than 13 months have passed since the date of the decision.
If this applies to you you're best to get advice immediately.