Are we receiving the correct entitlement

poppy123456

As your partner already receives the LCWRA then you won’t be entitled the this element in your claim because it can only be paid to one person per claim.

Your UC already includes the carers element as well so nothing will change with your future payments. 

If you’re asking about the carers element backdated then yes it will be this that you’re owed. 

Sorry but finding it difficult to follow your comments. 

Rosie_Scope

Philipfear637 said:

Hi poppy123456 or Hannah.
Can a moderator look at why there is a black square on the right hand side of my tablet on your site ,or is this normal,can you take a look because it is very annoying when I use the forum.scope.org.uk site. Thank you in advance.

Hi @Philipfear637, I'm not too sure what this black box could be. The only thing I can think of is that it's the little button to create a new discussion and it's not displaying quite right on your tablet. If it's that, it should be a little circle with a white plus sign in it. Are you able to take a screenshot at all? 

Philipfear637

Hi Poppy123456
You don't need to say sorry about trying to understand my comments,it's been a really complicated mixed age couples claim where both of us have long term disabilities and vulnerable as we don't really understand the complicated benefits system. Up until our WTC was stopped by a mistake done by other officers dealing with the DWP who did not look at the factual data about our joint claim added through a claim for Pip through a tribunal process awarded to us both in our favour on two separate Pip applications which led to the disability element being added to our WTC joint claim at that time. The DWP computer system classed our claim as a change of circumstances so closed down our payment on there system by mistakes made by that department dealing with our award entitlement. The mistake made was the officer who decided on stopping our payment had not looked at the extra data that had not been updated on there system. The officer decided to stop our entitlement a decision that had been over ruled by another officer through a tribunal Pip claim where I was awarded ongoing Pip because of the mistakes made. My partner also has her own Pip ongoing award on her separate Pip claim and the DWP awarded her ongoing Pip because of the mistakes with her claim that had been made previously. From the evidence sent in to the DWP decision maker on both Pip claims the officer making the tribunal process decision from evidence provided by the tribunal made a decision on both separate claims to award both of us ongoing pip awarded. The only difference is my partner gets mobility award too it was decided and awarded through the tribunal after waiting a year because they got it wrong so many times.
The DWP Pip awarded and decision made because of the evidence provided through the tribunal we both were awarded Ongoing Pip awards. Because of this type of award we were then sent a WTC award letter stating that because we had been awarded Pip then our entitlement of WTC in our joint couples WTC claim had been awarded the WTC disability element extra benefit which was added to our joint WTC payment at that time.So all was well I was still working with my disibilities up until the DWP,or WTC,or HMRC stopped our Working Tax Credit benefit saying a change of circumstances had occured and we were not entitled to WTC benefit backdated past two years. After many phone calls to the department and three Mandatory reconciliation letters I sent in,I have had no explanation only that they could see on there system that a mistake has been made with our WTC benefit and they were aware,but to give them a couple of weeks to put payment back into payment again. This did not happen payment was stopped which after waiting a month we decided to claim Universal Credit as a mixed age couple. We then had to wait another few months before we received a Universal Credit payment of £29.00 for us both because mistakes had been made with our joint Universal Credit claim too. After leaving typed messages in our joint journal asking for UC to check our data which had been added wrong by others we could see many messages were just ignored. They have acknowledged and apologised that mistakes again have been made with our mixed age couples UC claim where we were missing informed and told they were aware about us and we did not need to do anything further because of our registered disabilities they knew about.
My partner was claiming housing benefit because of low income before all this problem,and that stopped too because WTC wrongly stopped our WTC leading to my partners housing benefit also stopping being paid. I was also on the housing benefit claim as my income was used in the original calculation for housing benefit as I was the worker claiming WTC in our joint couple WTC claim at that time. The DWP officer who made this massive mistake with our WTC entitlement regarding the rules and what the law says we were entitled to WTC and the disability element awarded. The decision was checked by another DWP officer working through the tribunal process of Pip decisions that was missed by a mistake made with our joint claim of WTC and the awarded disibility element awarded to us through that court application process then awarded to us by the DWP officer who wrote to the tribunal saying they had looked at all the evidence provided and the extra evidence provided by other means and decided that Ongoing Pip was awarded. The DWP officer dealing with our WTC or the WTC system did not take the court tribunal award in our favours into considering our entitlement of WTC we were already in receipt of before the DWP added the extra disibility element to our payment. This was a mistake made by that officer on the decision of being entitled to WTC because as per a court case it has been ruled in law that couples claiming WTC because of low income do not have to be paid income if there is none to take in the capacity or working capacity as a Director of a Limited Company. The rules were missed on this decision and that the Pip data awarded by the DWP in my favour was missed,so payment and entitlement should have continued in payment. As the WTC payment on our joint WTC was stopped by mistake,they say we must pay back an overpayment for the past two tax years saying we were not entitled to WTC. This was completely wrong because the ruling of in this point in law has already been decided previously which states Directors do not have to take remuneration or a salary to be entitled to working tax credit, entitlement can be gained by other means,like the award of Pip which then leads to working tax credit disibility element awarded. So the WTC officer making the decision to stop our WTC entitlement was wrong. If this was right why weren't we contact about this two years previously as they are asking for us to pay back two previous years from the date this wrong decision has been made on our joint working tax credit claim we can no longer go back to now. We want the DWP to stop messing us about and pay us what we are owed as they know they have made these mistakes with our benefits we have claimed for many years due to low income. They also know they have made a massive mistake chasing us both for the overpayment amounts they say we owe back. It is them who have made this data mistake because they did not check what had been put on there system from other departments who can verify this mistake especially the court tribunal application process where the DWP wrote and told the tribunal dealing with our disability claim application had contacted us and told the tribunal that they had awarded ongoing Pip in both our favours which lead to the DWP adding the extra element to our joint WTC claim at that time. This has been a complete and utter mistake on there part that they now need to accept and pay us compensation,then waiver the overpayment that is being taken from our joint Universal Credit claim and pay us the backdated payment we are owed to us because of all these continued mistakes made by others ASP. 

Kimi87

Without wishing to be rude, your posts are very long and written without any spaces or paragraphs.
They might be easier for others to follow if they were shorter and more to the point. 

Philipfear637

Hi Poppy123456
I have read what onebigvoice has mentioned in his message on here.

I agree with what you have said Poppy that he has made a mistake in the advice because,when a person has reached State Pension age and they have already been awarded Pip or Pip mobility by the DWP before they reached State Pension age then that award of ongoing Pip will continue as per the DWP rules as you rightly have mentioned in your message.

The ongoing award also gets changed to an indefinite award in this type of circumstances. I think he must of been miss informed from whoever gave him that advice.

My suggestion to onebigvoice would be to check the data first before posting on here because we don't want any bad advice on here.

I can well understand though that there are many people miss informed because the benefits claims system is a nightmare and so complicated.

Thank you though for mentioning his mistake it is very much appreciated and your hard work does not go unnoticed.

I have been very happy with your advice Poppy given on here which has helped me know what we are entitled to claim 😄 many thanks again. Hope this message wasn't toooo long.

Jimm_Alumni

Hi everyone, if some posts seem to be referencing something that isn't here it's because some posts were removed. 

Philipfear637

Hi poppy123456
I have had a reply from DWP who have added a letter to my joint UC mixed age couple journal. It says that they have considered the written report sent to them by the assessor officer  from the assessment centre and a decision has been made by a DWP decision maker to award me LCWRA too on our mixed age couple UC claim. As both me and my partner have disabilities and my older partner receives state pension and ongoing Pip the LCWRA was awarded after the waiting period to our UC statement of entitlement. 
As she cares for me for less than 35 hours per week she has not been awarded the carers payment. As I care for her for 35 hours per week I have now been awarded the extra element payment which shows on our joint statement.
The letter says the LCWRA awarded to me being the extra element payment of £185 per month will be backdated to the start of the claim.
My question is do they mean the start date of our UC claim as we were receiving Ongoing Pip and disability element of WTC including housing benefit allowance before we claimed UC due to the DWP stopping out WTC claim by a mistake made by the DWP. So because of there mistakes will our backdated payment because paid back to the start date of our mixed age couple UC claim 18th September 2023 or will the DWP  backdated my claim for carers element which was missed off our joint UC claim in September 2023 right from the start of our UC claim. I have been caring for my partner since August 2022 when the DWP awarded her Pip in her favour after a Mandatory reconciliation through a tribunal appeal where the DWP awarded Pip in her favour. The same happend to my Pip claim in June 2022 that was awarded to me too in my favour. I do not understand all these rules and decisions made by the DWP. I don't think they have taken any notice of there own decision making by other departments. I don't think we should have had to wait any waiting time on any of our awards because the decision was made through the tribunal appeal before we were forced over to UC. As we are claiming UC we understand we can not go back to the WTC claim. We are still waiting for the answered to our written Mandatory reconciliation letters sent in three times and because of all these mistakes by others with our benefit claims we have been loosing our payment entitlement. I have done everything they have asked me to do and sent all my sick notes in. As my partner receives her state pension and has registered disabilities she does not need sick notes. She qualifies for carers allowance but gets ongoing pip instead so gets the underlying award of CA but she does not get the Carers allowance payment because you can not get both. This is another long post but it is the only way to try and explain what a mess this has been for us. 

poppy123456

I’m sorry but I’m really finding that so difficult to follow. It doesn’t help that you keep giving information that you’ve already given, such as mixed aged couple UC claim. 

As your partner already receives the LCWRA element on your claim then you won’t be entitled to that extra element for yourself. 

As your partner receives the LCWRA element they wouldn’t be entitled to carers element even if they cared for you for at least 35 hours per week because the same person can’t claim both elements at the same time. 

I already know that you were found to have LCWRA because you gave an update about the decision earlier in the thread. 

Sorry but I can’t advise about your WTC claim. 

Even if she claims CA there’s no underlying entitlement to it because you’re claiming UC and she can’t claim carers element anyway. 

Philipfear637

Sorry poppy about repeating data but because of my cognitive disibilities I forget and can not remember some of the data already added I have written in previous Scope messages. It's a problem caused by my Stroke but I try to deal with it as best I can,but sorry again about that and thank you for the advice. I will just wait for UC department to backdate the claim and hope they get it right this time. I will update scope here when they do decide to make the backdated payment as they say it will show in our joint statement of entitlement on our journal,but I don't know when that will be just have to be patient again.

Philipfear637

Hi poppy123456
I said I would leave a message regarding the UC carers element.
I have now received a message left in my MAC journal from the decision makers at UC regarding the carers element that had been missed off our mixed age couples UC statement of account.
I am very pleased about the decision made in my favour, although i had to wait a long time.
  Many thanks again for all the help I have received from the moderators regarding the problems we have had with our benefits.I have copied the message from UC left in my UC Mixed age couple journal that said this and I quote below.
Hi Philip

To summarise the letter, it means a decision was in your favour regarding Carers Element backdated.
This means you are owed an underpayment


backdated to Assessment period '18 September 2023' to '17 October 2023

The payment has been issued today, and will appear in your account 22/04/24 by 8pm

Regards
John
Universal Credit

poppy123456

That’s great news. Thanks for returning with an update. Just so that you know I’m not a moderator. I’m a member like yourself. I advise others freely in my own spare time. 

Philipfear637

Ho, I do apologise poppy123456 I thought you were a moderator for the scope forum as you have been very quick to help, my mistake sorry, but thank you anyway for all your advice and help it is very much appreciated. 

Philipfear637

I have mentioned in the first of my many posts that I would post here again when I receive a letter back from the Working Tax Credit department regarding the three mandatory reconciliation letters dated 21 September 2023I sent in asking the department to re-look at the decision made to stop our WTC payment and entitlement made by a working Tax credit officer at that time it was stopped in September 2023.

I have received a letter back from Tax Credit office BX9 1ER dated 28th May 2024 some eight months later.

The WTC letter states this and I quote ( we have not changed our decision)

I do not believe still that the working Tax credit officer has checked the system data on there system regarding the award of ongoing pip I was awarded through a tribunal appeal process.

DWP award me Ongoing Pip because of the previous mistakes made by there own department and wrong decisions made on the original Pip application back in June 2022.

After a Mandortary reconciliation on that June 2022 application and then after an appeal through the tribunal process,the DWP changed the original award because of the further evidence they received from me through the tribunal process to then award me Ongoing Pip award which was backdated to the date of the original claim as per the rules.

Because of the award of Ongoing Pip awarded to me in my favour by the DWP then led to the extra working Tax Credit disability element being added to our joint working Tax Credit payment we were receiving at that time by DWP to our joint couples working Tax credit claim we had been assessed as being entitled to at that time as I was working as the director working with my disabilities.

Because the DWP officer dealing with the tribunal appeal process had overruled the original wrong decision made with the original claim by awarding Ongoing Pip in my favour qualified me for the extra award of the disability element of WTC.

The DWP confirmed this with the tribunal in writing and subsequently the tribunal sent me a letter and text message to my mobile phone confirming the decision made by the DWP department decision maker.

The extra disability element of WTC was then added to our WTC payment by the DWP or WTC but after a few weeks of this extra WTC disability element payment being paid with our existing joint claim of WTC,the WTC or DWP stopped the payment saying I was not entitled to WTC.

The reason given in the WTC letter MD reply they say is because I was not receiving a salary or remuneration for the work I do during two previous tax years.

The WTC or DWP officer making this decision to stop the WTC award and our joint couples claim at that time has overlooked the overruling decision made by another officer from the DWP dealing with the Pip tribunal appeal process who awarded ongoing Pip in my favour.

My partner named on this joint working Tax credit claim as per the rules was also awarded ongoing Pip in her favour by the DWP department officer dealing with a separate Pip claim after Mandatory reconciliation and a tribunal appeal process.

Although the WTC letter recently says they have not changed there decision I am going to contact them again to ask for the overpayment of WTC they are taking from our joint universal credit they say we owe going back over two tax years I contest because of the wrong decision they have made especially when the Pip decision was overruled and awarded to us both through the tribunal appeal process awarded in both our favours by the DWP leading to the disability element awarded and added to our WTC by there own department.

I do not think that the tribunal will be very happy about the way both me and my partners WTC joint claim and separate Pip claims have been dealt with by the WTC,Pip or HMRC.It is obvious that the data added by these departments have been overlooked by those officers dealing with our benefit claims we are or were entitled to before the mistakes were made by those officers making wrong decisions with our benefit claims we were entitled to at that point in time.

I have downloaded another tribunal appeal form to appeal the decision made with the recent WTC Mandatory Reconciliation reply letter I have received from WTC with reference to tax years 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 after over eight months of waiting for a reply from the WTC department.

The WTC overpayment they are deducting from our joint UC claim is for two previous years ending 2021 and year ending 2022 tax year which is wrong.

The letter WTC have sent says Mandatory reconciliation for tax year 2022 to 2023 and another letter says mandatory reconciliation for year 2023 to 2024 which is also wrong.

I know the mandatory reconciliation for 2023 to 2024 year is wrong because I claimed Universal Credit on 18th September 2023 with my partner because we were forced to claim UC because WTC stopped our benefit payment which was a department decision makers error not checking other awards data on the system that gave us the entitlement to the WTC through other benefits.

The tax year WTC are taking the monthly overpayments payments from our Universal credit account ends 2022 on there original officers letter who sent it to us.

The company tax returns are dated for periods 1st November to 31st October since year 2005.

They have got it all wrong and are taking overpayments of WTC they say we owe when it is there own department who made the wrong decision by not checking decisions made by the officer dealing with the original tribunal appeal process who awarded the Ongoing Pip benefit at that time because of the overwhelming evidence we provided which was checked and accepted by the DWP as accurate data and has all been documented on the system.

We will of course be asking for all overpayments of the WTC they have taken from our UC account and the missing week's WTC payments that were stopped by error they made we were entitled to be fully refunded back to the account used and to also compensate us for our losses due to this error they have made with the WTC entitlement we were awarded through other awards by other departments like the award of Ongoing Pip by the DWP department leading to the extra element of WTC being added by the officer dealing with both Pip tribunal appeals on separate Pip claims documented on the system.

Because of the decision change made by the DWP officer during the Pip appeals process this over ruled any other WTC officers decision on benefit entitlement on other benefit claims because the DWP had made that decision already in both our favours after looking at all the evidence supporting our benefit claims we were told in the award letters sent to us both by the DWP department on our separate Pip claims which were awarded in both our favours leading to the extra element payment entitlement of WTC because we were already receiving the WTC benefit payment because of our low income before the extra disability element payment was added by the DWP through the tribunal appeals process awarded in both our favours by the DEPARTMENT.

.

I

poppy123456

That was very difficult to follow but I did notice something in there that caught my eye…

The reason given in the WTC letter MD reply they say is because I was not receiving a salary or remuneration for the work I do during two previous tax years.

Claiming PIP doesn't automatically entitle you to WTC. Were either yourself of your partner working at all? This comment above in bold suggests that HMRC believe that you weren't working.. were you self employed by any chance?

Philipfear637

Hi poppy 123456 sorry I've just seen your post so here is my reply. When the working tax credit officer stopped our benefit he said I was not getting a salary or remuneration so was not entitled to working tax credit which I dispute.

I declared to WTC that I was the working Director at the time working 50 hours because my limited company was open for business during those hours as a services company and as the director I am classed as responsible until such time it closes. So during the time our joint WTC claim was stopped and the two previous tax years yesterday I was working but not taking any salary or remuneration as directors of limited companies are not required to in this situation when there is no money to take as a paid salary in the bank account.

We were eligible and qualified for WTC benefit through other means ,at the time we were getting housing benefit as a couple on estimated low income and we were also awarded ongoing Pip on both separate tribunal appeal processes as both me and my partner were awarded by the DWP ongoing pip after the original applications were reviewed and then changed to an ongoing Pip award in both our favours on separate tribunal appeals.

The Tribunal appeal process awarded by the DWP in both our favours was confirmed by letter and text messages and the tribunal let us both know too.

This type of award made through the Pip tribunal process also then led the DWP to award us the disability element of WTC over riding any other decision made by other departments,so we were entitled to WTC payment and the extra disability award element that was added because we had been assessed already by the DWP for the Ongoing Pip awarded making the WTC award payments we were receiving to continue in payment and eligible.

This other way of entitlement to the payment of WTC has already been ruled on in benefits case law which says if you are already recieving WTC payment before an award of ongoing Pip then working tax credit will continue if you are awarded ongoing pip through a change made by the DWP through the tribunal appeal process made in the clients favour like both our Ongoing Pip claims were.

The WTC officer who stopped our WTC benefit by a mistake made or error made had not seen the change made to both our original Pip awards on both appeals made through the tribunal appeal process at that time. The officer made the mistake because he did not check the data already awarded on the system and missed the data added by the DWP tribunal appeal process officer where the original Pip decision was changed to an ongoing award of pip made in both our favours on separate tribunal Pip appeal claims showing and added by the DWP to the system. This also caused the overpayment that WTC say we owe back that is being deducted from our joint universal credit statement by the working tax credit department every month that we are disputing . I have left another message on our Universal credit journal asking for the overpayment of WTC to be stopped and removed as this is an error as we do not owe any overpayments as we were awarded ongoing pip through the tribunal appeal process who awarded the WTC extra disability element payment to our original WTC account backdated to the Pip application date of the original claim that was changed to an award of ongoing Pip through the tribunal appeal process by the DWP own department who dealt with the tribunal appeal process that was awarded in both our favours.

Our working Tax Credit should not of been stopped because the extra element payment was paid by the DWP and added to our already awarded WTC payment we were already receiving because we were already receiving housing benefit because of low income and then the tribunal appeal process award of ongoing Pip. Because of decisions made and already awarded on other benefits entitlement to Working Tax Credit had already been assessed by other means and awards through the tribunal appeal process so we were entitled to the WTC payment awarded to us on our WTC yearly renewal applications made.