Carers allowance - worried

annaloui

good afternoon ,

I’ve recently gone to cancel my carers allowance due to a change in circumstance.

I’ve recently spoken to universal credit who say my CA is still showing as active so the deductions will come out next money.

When I queried this with carers allowance they said there was a couple of months where I earned over the threshold. So it’s down as ‘suspended’ while they look in to it before they can close it.

My question is .. this has always been deducted from my universal credit so I have never seen any financial gain to claiming carers allowance. Will I have to pay the two months back personally? As it’s always been taken off me anyway ?

I’m a bit worried I will get in to legal trouble as well for an honest mistake as I though HMRC reported my earnings to the automatically.

Any advice welcome.

poppy123456

Yes you will need to repay back if there’s an overpayment. If that happens then because you weren’t entitled to it then UC should then recalculate your past statements to reflect that overpayment so you will receive it back from UC.

Yes I know it would be logical if UC would cover that overpayment but they rarely communicate with each other.

Does your UC include carers element? You don’t have to claim carers allowance to be entitled to carers element. However, if your UC includes the LCWRA element for yourself then you won’t be able to claim both elements at the same time.

Yes your employer reports earnings to HMRC which UC then check the RTI for your earnings. When claiming Carers allowance it’s your responsibility to report any changes in earnings because they don’t check RTI like UC do.

annaloui

thanks for this Poppy this is so helpful , it’s all such a minefield. I am getting carers element… when my family member got sick I just filled out all the relevant paper work. In hindsight there was no point claiming C/A as it just got taken off me anyway. But I’d never done this before now.

so once I payback the overpayment will UC give it back to me anyway ?

I’ve been a little worried about getting in to trouble legally. CA said I wouldn’t but I’ve just beeb panicking the will prosecute me for not informing them or something. It’s all a bit of a mess.

poppy123456

You're welcome. Yes, if there's an overpayment due to earnings then it means you shouldn't been claiming it so the deductions from UC wouldn't have happened if you weren't claiming it.

You definitely won't be prosecuted. The worst that could happen is that you'll have a small £50 fine on top of the overpayment for not reporting the changes.

annaloui

thanks again .. feel like I can sleep a little better tonight knowing I won’t be in to much trouble. Happy to pay the £50 if it comes to it. Hopefully it can be sorted out soon.