Representative Payment Policies Regulation

§ 416.625

20 CFR Ch. III (4–1–06 Edition)

applicant undue hardship. For example,
the payee applicant would have to
travel a great distance to the field office. In this situation, we may conduct
the investigation to determine the
payee applicant’s suitability to serve
as a representative payee without a
face-to-face interview. We may decide
subsequent face-to-face interviews are
impracticable for an organizational
representative payee applicant when
the organization is known by the field
office as a suitable payee. We base this
decision on the organization’s past performance, recent contacts, and its
knowledge of and compliance with reporting requirements.
[69 FR 60237, Oct. 7, 2004]

§ 416.625 What information must a representative payee report to us?
Anytime after we select a representative payee for you, we may ask your
payee to give us information showing a
continuing relationship with you, a
continuing responsibility for your care,
and how he/she used the payments on
your behalf. If your representative
payee does not give us the requested
information within a reasonable period
of time, we may stop sending your benefit payment to him/her—unless we determine that he/she had a satisfactory
reason for not meeting our request and
we subsequently receive the requested
information. If we decide to stop sending your benefit payment to your representative payee, we will consider
paying you directly (in accordance
with § 416.611) while we look for a new
payee.
[69 FR 60238, Oct. 7, 2004]

jcorcoran on PROD1PC62 with CFR

§ 416.630 How will we notify you when
we decide you need a representative payee?
(a) We notify you in writing of our
determination to make representative
payment. This advance notice explains
that we have determined that representative payment is in your interest, and it provides the name of the
representative payee we have selected.
We provide this notice before we actually appoint the payee. If you are under
age 15, an unemancipated minor under
the age of 18, or legally incompetent,
our written notice goes to your legal

guardian or legal representative. The
advance notice:
(1) Contains language that is easily
understandable to the reader.
(2) Identifies the person designated as
your representative payee.
(3) Explains that you, your legal
guardian, or your legal representative
can appeal our determination that you
need a representative payee.
(4) Explains that you, your legal
guardian, or your legal representative
can appeal our designation of a particular person to serve as your representative payee.
(5) Explains that you, your legal
guardian, or your legal representative
can review the evidence upon which
our designation of a particular representative payee is based and submit
additional evidence.
(b) If you, your legal guardian, or
your legal representative objects to
representative payment or to the designated payee, we will handle the objection as follows:
(1) If you disagree with the decision
and wish to file an appeal, we will process it under subpart N of this part.
(2) If you received your advance notice by mail and you protest or file
your appeal within 10 days after you
receive the notice, we will delay the
action until we make a decision on
your protest or appeal. (If you received
and signed your notice while you were
in the local field office, our decision
will be effective immediately.)
[69 FR 60238, Oct. 7, 2004]

§ 416.635 Responsibilities of a representative payee.
A representative payee has a responsibility to—
(a) Use the payments he or she receives only for the use and benefit of
the beneficiary in a manner and for the
purposes he or she determines, under
the guidelines in this subpart, to be in
the best interests of the beneficiary;
(b) Notify us of any event that will
affect the amount of benefits the beneficiary receives or the right of the beneficiary to receive benefits (See subpart G of this part concerning these reporting requirements);
(c) Submit to us, upon our request, a
written report accounting for the benefits received;

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