Approaching state retirement/Carers Allowance/Severe Disability Premium

Geordieboy

Hi

I am a carer in receipt of Carers Allowance as I care for my adult son who lives at home with my spouse and I.  We own our home.  My son receives Income related ESA and is in the Support Group.  He also receives PIP at the mobility rate.

My spouse and I have a full entitlement to the new State Retirement Pension (SRP} Recently I have become aware that I cannot claim CA and SRP at the same time as they are both income replacement benefits; my SRP will be higher so CA will cease in a few months time. As my spouse has 5 years to go before SRP, it makes sense for them to submit a claim for CA when my entitlement ceases.  Spouse is currently getting NI Credit, but as I said, the SRP forecast cannot be improved any further.

Then I discovered that my son may be entitled to Severe Disability Premium if neither of us were claiming CA, is that correct?  We would be happy to forego CA if it meant my son was getting all the benefits he was entitled to.

Thank you

poppy123456

Your son will only be entitled to SDP if both you and your partner are either claiming a qualifying disability yourselves such as PIP daily living, DLA mid/high rate care or AA, or you're registered blind. If you're not then he won't be entitled to SDP.

Geordieboy

OK poppy thank you for your prompt reply.  That has left me wondering what is the logic of that, him not being entitled unless we also qualify for certain benefits?  What is SDP actually for?  With CA effectively potentially ceasing, we are still doing the caring!

poppy123456

It's not qualifying that entitles him, it's actually being in receipt of certain disability benefits yourselves. It's a disability premium payable to those who live alone or treated as living alone because having no carer could mean extra costs.

Unfortunately because he lives with you then you are expected to care for him, even if there's no entitlement to CA.

When you claim your state pension it will be for you, you can't claim state pension as a couple. Once your state pension starts and CA payments end as you said your partner can claim it for looking after your son. Even though they don't need the NI credits, they will still be entitled to the payments, which is £76.75/week. This way you're not losing out any any benefits entitlement.

Are you claiming any other benefits for yourselves at all? You can check entitlement to Universal Credit. You will need to claim this with your partner because it's a means tested benefit. If you have savings/capital of more than £16,000 then you're excluded from claiming. You can use a benefits calculator to check entitlement.

The carers allowance will be deducted in full if there's any entitlement. Your maximum UC entitlement will also include carers element.

calcotti

Geordieboy said:

..Recently I have become aware that I cannot claim CA and SRP at the same time as they are both income replacement benefits; my SRP will be higher so CA will cease in a few months time. 

You can claim both CA and SRP but you cannot be paid CA when receiving SRP. You will have an 'underlying entitlement' to CA and it will increase your possible entitlement to Pension Credit (when you are both pension age) with the addition of a carer premium but if you and your partner both get the full SRP amount there is probably no PC entitlement even with the carer premium.

Geordieboy

Thank you both for your helpful responses.  We are not entitled to any other benefits including UC. As Poppy says, at least spouse can claim CA when I reach SRP age.