Pip

karen57

Hi I have rang the dwp and they say that I was paid £525 back pay from the 30th June to to the 30th August then normal payments commenced on the 20th of September. I asked if it would be backdated to the 16th May when I rang them and reported a change in my health and they said no. Is this correct ? 

Thanks 
Karen

poppy123456

It should be from the date you rang to report the changes, providing you had the worsening of condition for at least 3 months at that time.

karen57

it started in early march of this year

poppy123456

That means 3 months from March would be June. Although you say "early" March it started the decision maker has decided it's from 30th June.

I realised you asked this question on another thread, i apologise that i didn't include the 3 month timeframe for worsening of condition in the advice i gave. I completely overlooked that.

karen57

that’s ok thanks for your help 
best wishes 
karen

EbonyOrtiz

Thanks for the info, I will keep it in my mind.

DavionKling

the DWP's response appears to align with their standard policy. Typically, they can backdate payments up to 3 months, and it seems they've done so in your case. 

poppy123456

DavionKling said:

the DWP's response appears to align with their standard policy. Typically, they can backdate payments up to 3 months, and it seems they've done so in your case. 

That's not correct for PIP purposes and also some other DWP benefits too. For PIP if it's a first time claim and you're not transferring from DLA, providing you had the difficulties for at least 3 months then it's paid from the date you rang to start your claim. It can't be backdated further than the date you rang to start your claim.

For Universal Credit it can only be backdated for a maximum of 1 month but only in the most extreme cases.

New Style ESA can be backdated for a maximum of 3 months, providing you weren't claiming SSP at that time. ESA can't be paid at the same time as SSP.

For reviews of PIP in normal times if it's started by DWP then there's not usually any money owed if the new award is higher, as the new award starts from the date of the decision. As the backlogs are extremely long in a lot of cases the decision maker is using their own discretion whether to backdate the award to an earlier date and pay the difference between the old award and the new award.

When reporting changes if you had the increased difficulties for at least 3 months before you rang then any increased award will be from the date you rang. In this case Karen reported a change of health condition but when they rang they didn't experience the increased difficulties for at least 3 months before ringing. For this reason it wasn't backdated to the date they rang.