SMI affect on other benefits

Broken
Broken Online Community Member Posts: 43 Contributor
in Benefits and income
As per page 3 7.12 of the Govt document regarding SMI, what does it mean by 
With the removal of SMI as part of their benefit entitlement, some individuals will no longer be entitled to one of the income-related benefits because they have too much income. The regulations ensure that this group will be “treated as entitled” to one of those benefits to ensure that they remain eligible for SMI and they will be offered SMI loans. They will however lose entitlement to some pass-ported benefits where the sole qualifying criterion is receipt of one of the income-related benefits. We believe that the number of people affected will be very low. These claimants may still be able to get help via certain pass-ported benefit schemes where there is an alternative access route via a low income test. 
What are the "pass-ported" benefits????
With this loan being in fact a LIEN, it will show up on searches made by prospective buyers and possibly put them off the purchase. 
Is it a good idea to accept this loan in order to retain other benefits?
Totally confused :-( 

Comments

  • BenefitsTrainingCo
    BenefitsTrainingCo Online Community Member Posts: 2,621 Trailblazing

    Hi @Broken

    This refers to a very small minority of claimants who's ONLY entitlement to 'passporting benefits' (which is the income-related DWP benefits such as income-based Jobseekers, income-related ESA, Income Support, Pension Credit and UC - the ones which entitle you to free prescriptions, dental, etc) is the small amount of SMI they receive.

    These claims only arise where the person has income (e.g. from earnings or rental income or a private pension) which takes them over the threshold to receive the passporting benefit in most circumstances, but because the amount of SMI is added to the 'applicable amount' (the 'threshold' over which they will not qualify) so that they still receive the SMI as passporting benefit.

    If you're getting paid one of the income-related benefits mentioned above, then you do not fall within this category, as these claimants do not get paid any benefit, the SMI goes straight to the mortgage company.

    As to whether to accept this loan, in most cases it will not affect entitlement to other benefits, so it's just a case of whether you can afford not to.

    Hope this helps.

    Kind regards,

    Mary


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