Very confused - please help. ESA and moving in with partner

Spaceman69

My partner and I are not living together.

We're getting married this month. After that we'll be living together in a house she will be buying with the money she inherited from her father.

We will be moving in to the house at different times, either her first or me first.

I claim legacy income related ESA and am in the support group. I get full PIP.

My partner has a PIP tribunal pending and has just put in a claim for new style ESA. She worked for the periods 2021/22 and 2022/23.

I've been told by a very helpful person on another forum that if I move into the property first, then when my partner moves in, it'll become a joint claim. I'll lose the disability premium of ESA, but that will be reinstated if she receives PIP.

However, I don't know what would happen if she moves in first and I follow?

I'm just really confused by all of this and can't seem to find anything online that answers my questions.

If I'm getting my legacy income based ESA and she gets new style ESA, what happens?

Should she claim UC too?

What if she does get UC and new style ESA, and I'm getting legacy income based ESA?

It's driving me a bit nuts trying to get my head around this and it doesn't appear very clear to me. My autistic brain is finding it tough to understand.

I hope someone can help?

Thank you...

OverlyAnxious

Hi,

This does sound like a complex situation and I won't pretend to know the perfect solution.

One thing I can say is that UC can't be claimed singly when you live together. So you will both need to go onto UC when one of you needs to go on to it.

As I'm sure you're aware, your legacy ESA will be migrated to UC within the next year anyway. But you will be better off waiting for the migration if you currently get the Severe Disability Premium, as you will get Transitional Protection to ensure you're no worse off on UC.

Legacy ESA is similar, when you move in with your partner you should inform ESA and it would usually change to a couples claim. Though as your partner in on New Style ESA I'm not quite sure how it works in this case.

New Style ESA gets deducted from UC so there's no financial gain to one person claiming both. But as said above, when you go onto UC, your partner will need to be included in that claim. Both of your savings are taken into account for this, so if they still have some money left over from the inheritance, that can cause problems. (Over £16k between you will stop all means tested benefits)

You are correct in that you'll lose SDP when living with someone, although if they are awarded the daily living part of PIP, that should allow you to claim SDP again. It's not applicable if they're only awarded the mobility part of PIP though.

Hopefully that's all correct, but as I say, this is definitely a complex situation.

Spaceman69

Hi,

Thank you for the above post. It's proven to be extremely helpful and informative.

I believe the migration from legacy income based ESA is happening in 2029 at the earliest?

Kimmy87

The timetable has recently changed, it's happening from now up until December 2025.

OverlyAnxious

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/922455#Comment_922455

You're welcome.

As above, that information is out of date. The migration letters for people with IR ESA started to be sent out last month. With the end date currently set at December 2025. So you could get your letter any day now.

Jimm_Scope

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/922455#Comment_922455

Hi , as other people have said this information is now slightly out of date. It does keep changing so it is understandable that it's difficult to keep up with all the possible changes going on right now.