ESA closed, opened Universal Credit but lost disability premiums

nciae7777

I was on income related esa and after a very bad experience, I was wrongly incarcerated in custody for 2 weeks in remand. 

After being released, I realised my esa was closed and I needed to apply for universal credit. 

I was receiving disability premiums, sdp and I think enhanced or standard disability premium. After opening my uc account late due to mental health state at the time, I was advised that I was not entitled to Transitional Protection(bevause it was not within a month of opening my uc claim). I therefore appealed the universal credit to have it back dated and it was granted by a decision maker. It is now within 1 month of the esa claim being closed and now a benefits adviser told me , makes me me entitled to the transitional protection payments.

However, after requesting / applying for the transitional payments and asking for my uc claim to now be linked to the esa claim , I have been told there are different rules which apply because I was in custody? "Because I was not forced to migrate to uc"  Surely this cannot be correct? Am I wrong or is the universal credit case manager wrong? 

Please help and advise what I can do. I had the health assesment on uc, and they eventually put me on lcwra but I lost out on 5 or 6 months of higher sdp esa payments until the point they started paying me lwrca universal credit. This is why I am trying to get them to link the claims and award me transitional protection. Thank you very much in advance for your help.

nciae7777

I was on income related esa and after a very bad experience, I was wrongly incarcerated in custody for 2 weeks in remand. Please don't judge me without knowing me.

After being released, I realised my esa was closed and I needed to apply for universal credit. 

I was receiving disability premiums, sdp and I think enhanced or standard disability premium. After opening my uc account late due to mental health state at the time, I was advised that I was not entitled to Transitional Protection(bevause it was not within a month of opening my uc claim). I therefore appealed the universal credit to have it back dated and it was granted by a decision maker. It is now within 1 month of the esa claim being closed and now a benefits adviser told me , makes me me entitled to the transitional protection payments.

However, after requesting / applying for the transitional payments and asking for my uc claim to now be linked to the esa claim , I have been told there are different rules which apply because I was in custody? "Because I was not forced to migrate to uc"  Surely this cannot be correct? Am I wrong or is the universal credit case manager wrong? 

Please help and advise what I can do. I had the health assesment on uc, and they eventually put me on lcwra but I lost out on 5 or 6 months of higher sdp esa payments until the point they started paying me lwrca universal credit. This is why I am trying to get them to link the claims and award me transitional protection. Thank you very much in advance for your help.

poppy123456

I think the case manager is wrong here. If your UC was backdated to within 28 days of your ESA ending then you should have been entitled to the SDP Transitional protection of £313.79/month. 

However, because your ESA ended you would not have been entitled to the LCWRA element of UC from the start of your claim. The waiting period was correct. 

Once the LCWRA element was included in your claim this would have eroded the TP so you would have only been entitled to an extra £76.37/month. 

You were still worse off when you claimed UC because they didn’t include the TP. 

I’d advise you to request the Mandatory Reconsideration on the decision not to include this at the start of your claim. 

Rosie_Scope

Hi @nciae7777, sorry this has happened to you.

I'm afraid I don't have any specific advice to share, but I just wanted to say hello and welcome you to the community. I have moved your post over to our UC section where more members with the right experiences can see it. Hopefully they'll be along shortly to offer some advice and support.

I hope things get cleared up for you soon

Albus_Scope

Copy of post here, which Poppy has replied to.

Rosie_Scope

Thanks for flagging @Albus_Scope.

Just so you know, I have merged your two discussions @nciae7777 so you can keep track of the replies more easily  

nciae7777

Thanks very much for your reply Rosie, I will update the post when I hear from the case manager.  

nciae7777

poppy123456 said:

I think the case manager is wrong here. If your UC was backdated to within 28 days of your ESA ending then you should have been entitled to the SDP Transitional protection of £313.79/month. 

However, because your ESA ended you would not have been entitled to the LCWRA element of UC from the start of your claim. The waiting period was correct. 

Once the LCWRA element was included in your claim this would have eroded the TP so you would have only been entitled to an extra £76.37/month. 

You were still worse off when you claimed UC because they didn’t include the TP. 

I’d advise you to request the Mandatory Reconsideration on the decision not to include this at the start of your claim. 

Thank you very much for your reply Rosie..I have contacted uc and left message for case manager to contact me. As far as I remember he said to me "you weren't forced to migrate to Universal credit , so there are different rules which apply" . Regardless if what happened, I think they deem it as a " change in circumstances ". It doesn't seem right because my health condition was even worse afterwards. I will update the post when I hear from him. Thanks again.

poppy123456

Being "forced" to claim UC doesn't exclude from the SDP TP. This is exactly what this TP is for.