ESA underpayment lump sum - is it classified as an income/savings or NOT?

Blizanac
Blizanac Online Community Member Posts: 2 Listener
edited November 4 in Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)

Dear online community, I would kindly appreciate your advice.

Following the recent visit from my jobcentre advisor who informed me of the ESA underpayments related to the underpayments in premiums for 8 years that DWP owes me, I am due to be paid £25000 of lump sum. I was very shocked!

I was also confused at the same time as I was told explicitly by the advisor that the DWP is not allowed to treated this underpayment as an income or savings. I read somewhere that DWP gives 52 weeks before declaring this underpayment as savings. Is that true? This money was rather overdue so it should not be seen as savings or income. So, how do I treat that money? Is any transfer of that underpayment amount from one bank account to another treated as "deprivation" in the case of universal credit application? I worry that if I do so, this other account will be treated as "savings" if I transfer some money in order to avoid having more than £6000 in the current account tied to my ESA.

I also worry that because I receive the ESA as a part of my support for an ongoing cancer treatment and being Deaf and because I am due to migrate to the universal credit; if my bank amount exceeds £6000 then I am losing the benefits.  I am not being greedy but that money supposed to be paid out to me when I really needed during the cancer treatment and afterwards. I also worry about cancer returning and if you sign off the ESA or UC (to which I need to migrate very soon), it will be difficult to restart it.

As DWP will start carrying out the bank account checks on people who receive the benefits, your advice would be appreciated.

Kind regards,

Tagged:

Comments

  • Kimi87
    Kimi87 Online Community Member Posts: 7,499 Championing
    edited November 3

    Backpay/error amounts over £5000 are generally disregarded for the life of the claim, including your subsequent UC application.

    When you apply for UC you are first asked how much money you have, then there is a situation to select options for amounts to be disregarded.

    You may be asked to attend a Jobcentre in person with paper bank statements.

    To be careful I would certainly request a letter in writing from ESA confirming the amount due and reasons for disregard.

Categories