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Urgent query about UC and carers allowance any help greatly appreciated.

Moomin1

Hello I am new here,

I have a dilemma and I am not sure what to do about it. I have asked someone on UC line at CAB about this and they gave me an answer that I cant seem to match up with what I have found online. I was just hoping to double check the info I have been told. I have my UC claim date looming, which will include transitional protection if i do it before the date.

Here goes:

I receive for myself, full ESA with severe disability premium, Housing and council tax benefit, child tax credits, child benefit, PIP enhanced rate on both. I am single parent, 1 child living in council acommodation.

Last year I made a claim for my child for DLA in June 2024, we have been granted it at middle rate care and lower rate mobility (Challenging this currently with a MR). We got the decision on the 13th of December 2024.

I have been told to claim carers allowance before my claim deadline for universal credit.

I am worried that somehow I will be worse off doing this.

I know that UC will reduce my claim amount £ for £, for whatever Carers allowance I get, but I was told that my transitional protection will increase to make this worth doing. They said I should be £197 better off per month if I claim CA before I claim UC. Is this right?

Will I lose out in any other way? I get severe disability premium in my ESA currently, and I was told my child might get a severe disability element included in my UC, but I don't know if either would then be reduced because of receiving the carers allowance? It seems very complicated and I just don't know if it is best if I claim it or not. I don't want to end up losing out or having my transitional protection reduced, however any amount that we would be due extra would be great and much appreciated.

Any help much appreciated.

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Comments

Kimi87

Their advice was incorrect. You can claim Carers Allowance, but this will be deducted in full from your UC award.

It will not increase your Transitional Protection.

Yes you can claim Disabled Child Element under UC.

It is not impacted by Carers Allowance.

If your ESA is Support Group then you will be entitled to LCWRA from the start of your UC claim.

CAB were possibly thinking of Carers Element (198.31) which is paid under UC, but you will not be able to get that (assuming you will have LCWRA) .

The same person cannot get both CE and LCWRA.

poppy123456

That's a lot of questions and I will try my best to answer all of them, apologies if I miss something. Firstly, when you migrate to UC you will not be worse off because Transitional Protection will be included with your claim. I don't think it's correct that TP will increase due to you claiming carers allowance.

You can claim carers allowance and ask for it to be backdated to the start of the DLA award. It will take up to about 12 weeks for a decision to be made. Once the award is in place they would need to recalculate your ESA to work out exactly how much money is owed for that, so if you need to claim UC soon then it's very likely this won't be done in time for that.

As your child has been awarded DLA did you contact HMRC to report the changes to them? You would have been entitled to extra child tax credits with the disabled child element. If you didn't then you will need to do that and it will be backdated to the start of the DLA award.

When you claim UC you will need to report that your child claims DLA. With their current award your UC will include the lower disabled child element, which is £156.11/month. If they are eventually awarded high rate care then you'll be entitled to the higher disabled child element which is currently £487.58/month. This would be backdated to the start of your UC claim. It's a little more complicated because you would also need to contact HMRC to tell them the new award decision and you'll be owed some money for higher disabled child element of tax credits.

Going forward when you claim UC the Carers allowance will be deducted in full so no financial gain to claiming it. As your UC will also include the LCWRA element for yourself the same person can't receive this and the carers element at the same time so you won't be entitled to that.

I hope the information I've given helps.

Edit to add, it took me so long to type this I didn't see Kimmy's comment until after I posted and refreshed the page. I'm glad to see that both our advice matched!

Moomin1

Dear Kimmy,

Thank you for your reply. That is so worrying. Earlier this evening I decided to do some calculations on turn2us. It asked did I want to include some calculations if I were to receive CA and if I got UC, so I went ahead to compare. this is where it is confusing. They say my full entitlement on legacy benefits incl child dla and pip is 3957.79 on legacy benefits incl CA. With UC my entitlement is 3953.47 incl the amount they deduct off my UC to cover CA. It says that is increases my transitional protection from around £400 to £600 if I claim CA. It shows if I don't claim CA I will get £3755.87 Why is it showing this do you think? I am so confused

Moomin1

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/980476#Comment_980476

Dear Poppy,

Thank you for tour response. I will paste what i said to Kimmy as well for reference.

Dear Kimmy,

To add I rang UC today to ask as well ad the one person I got seemed to agree that it increases TP and amount overall but we got cut off half way through. Some things online seem to agree other things I found don't, so I feel really confused. I don't believe CA will be helpful to claim but it is very hard to find out for sure. I wish they made these things a bit easier to understand.

When you say my ESA award will be recalculated, do I stand to lose money on my ESA by claiming CA?

Thank you for your reply I know I have asked a lot of questions.

Moomin1

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/980467#Comment_980467

Dear Kimmy,

Thank you for your help.

poppy123456

A benefits calculator is only as good as the information you put into it. Claiming carers allowance will not affect your TP.

Please don't ring the UC helpline for any benefits advice because they are not advisors. They sit there reading from a screen and very often give incorrect information.

When they recalculate your ESA if all of it is Income Related then yes the carers allowance will be deducted in full, like it will be from UC. For the ESA they will include the carers premium which is about £46/week. Therefore you will be this much per week better off, you will not lose out financially. With carers allowance being backdated to the start of the DLA award, providing you claim within 3 months of the date of the decision, I can't see what's not worth claiming because you'll be better off financially.

Moomin1

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/980491#Comment_980491

Hi Poppy,

That is what I thought, it is hard to trust the calculator and the UC line, i rang a few times and they all gave different answers, I think this just made me more confused!

Really appreciate your help. I will make the claim for CA now, so at least it is done before I make my claim for UC tomorrow. The one lady that seemed more knowledgeable at UC said that claiming before migration means I would be a bit better off, but if I claim after I will just lose out and doesn't make sense to claim it, not sure how true that is.

Speaking of backdating that is one of my questions. If I get the backdate back to June last year, assuming I get £46 a week backdated till the beginning of June, I should receive around £1656 backdate more or less,

will this affect my UC claim?

will this be deducted from my payments for UC?

if so will it be in one lump sum or across months? Will it affect my ESA and SDP?

Will I need to pay ESA back anything? If so, how much per month roughly would I have to.

I saw online on the gov website that claiming CA can prevent you from receiving transitional protection for SDP. Is this true?

If that is true to having to owe UC money, it doesn't seem fair, because had I been receiving it from June, then I would have used the money to live on etc and no payment or deduction would be due from UC, seems a crazy way to do it.

Sorry for all the questions but I am in a bit of a panic, I have autism and when I don't know things exactly I feel very anxious. Thank you for your help.

poppy123456

The money that will be owed will not affect your UC and will be treated as capital, which will be disregarded for 1 year. It will be paid as a lump sum.

No, you won't need to pay anything back to ESA because carers allowance will contact ESA and pay them what would be owed, which will be done automatically. This is exactly what happened to me when I claimed carers allowance some years ago.

It would not affect your SDP.

What you've seen online about the CA affecting SDP is irrelevant here because you are claiming carers allowance for someone else. No one is claiming it for you.

Moomin1

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/980535#Comment_980535

Thank you so much Poppy. I have just made my claim online, I hope it all goes smoothly.

There wasn't a question or extra box to explain to about why I think ti should be backdated from June last year. I just put the date I wanted it backdated from, will they contact me for more info about the start date or a copy of the dla decision letter from December? Or will they just know that info from their systems? I also put the caring start date as my child's birth date, is that ok?

You really have helped me feel less anxious thank you.

poppy123456

You're welcome. I wouldn't expect them to contact you. They will check with DLA what award your child has and then award carers allowance.