Suspending, cancelling and restoring Farm Household Allowance (FHA) 002-02080010

When a customer's payments are suspended, they must be told the reason and given their rights of review and appeal, to avoid placing them in financial hardship.

Suspension may occur for the following reasons:

• qualification failures, failure to:
• agree to Financial Improvement Agreement (FIA)
• comply with activities in FIA
• compliance failures, failure to:
• complete a Farm Financial Assessment (FFA)
• report employment income
• notify change of circumstances
• reply to correspondence
• provide an annual financial update
• customer travelling overseas without an approved reason
• compensation settlement under investigation
• a direct credit payment has been returned

Suspension does not necessarily indicate a loss of entitlement. Full arrears may be issued if the payment is subsequently restored.

Before considering a manual suspension, the decision maker must be satisfied that:

• a notice was issued to the customer
• the notice contained details of:
• the information/action required by the customer
• the timeframe for response
• the consequences of non-compliance
• a reference to the relevant legislation under which the notice is given, and
• the customer has not complied with the request.
  Payments where a compliance failure was recorded, will restart from the date the customer complies. A conduct failure results in an 8-week non-payment period rather than a suspension

For more details on qualification and conduct failures, see Mutual obligations, failures and exemptions from the activity test for Farm Household (FHA) customers.

When a customer's payments are cancelled, they must be given:

• the reason for the cancellation, and
• their review and appeal rights

Cancellation of the FHA payment may place the customer in financial hardship.

Entitlement to FHA may be cancelled for several reasons. Most cancellations occur when:

• current information supplied by the customer under their notification obligations results in no longer qualifying for the payment
• the customer fails to comply with their notification obligations

FHA is cancelled if:

• payments are still suspended after 13 weeks
• the customer:
• asks to cancel the payment including when they are starting work or study. Complete this as a manual cancellation
• fails to report income within 15 days of their reporting due date
• ceases to qualify for FHA
• is granted an alternative income support payment
• is imprisoned/on remand
• fails to reply to correspondence
• employment income precludes payment for 12 consecutive fortnights
• partner's employment income precludes payment for 12 consecutive fortnights

If a customer asks for FHA to be cancelled, they may have to submit a new FHA claim to receive payments in the future.

Customers are only eligible for 1,460 days on payment of FHA in each specific 10-year period.

At the end of 1,460 days the customer may need to report:

• to release the final amount of FHA
• on a reporting date that is after the Predicted End Date of FHA

When the customer completes their final report:

• the final payment is released, and
• cancellation of FHA is triggered

.

For more details, see Fourth year exit pathway for Farm Household Allowance (FHA) customers.

When coding a decision to suspend/cancel FHA, a reason must be recorded. The Resources page contains a list of reason codes used for FHA. Processing staff must select the code that most accurately reflects the reason for the cancellation.

The Process page contains more details about the use of suspension and cancellation reason codes.

FHA can only be restored after a review of a decision to suspend FHA. If there has been a change of circumstances, the relevant information must be updated on the customer's record before restoring or re-granting payment to avoid generating incorrect arrears.

If a customer advises of a separation, see Separating safely - protecting personal details to make sure personal information is kept safe.

If payment is suspended because the customer did not provide a Farm Financial Assessment (FFA) or has committed a qualification failure, FHA can only be restored after actioning the failure.

Before restoring the payment, all failures must be resolved. For:

• an FFA failure, see Farm Financial Assessments (FFA)
• a qualification failure; see Mutual obligations, failures and exemptions from the activity test for Farm Household Allowance (FHA) customers

If FHA has been cancelled and circumstances have changed, they may need to submit a new claim to receive future FHA payments.

When the suspension or cancellation is for multiple reasons, restoration only occurs once the customer's qualification for payment is fully re-established. This is checked using the Benefit Status (XBS) screen.

When FHA is suspended or cancelled a letter will be sent to the customer advising of:

• the suspension/cancellation and the reason
• any information or documentation required to allow FHA to be restored, and
• their review and appeal rights

If a customer contacts about a

• suspension:
• explain the reason for the suspension
• tell them what they need to do to have their payment restored
• cancellation:
• explain the reason for cancellation
• tell them how to apply for a formal review of the decision or re-claim FHA

If suspected, or if the customer discloses, they are experiencing vulnerability, offer referral to available resources, external services providers or agency specialist staff if needed.

If there are family and domestic violence indicators, see Family and domestic violence.