Advice needed

ollieandduke

My husband was taken off my joint claim of esa in july last year.
Hes been working 2 days a week for 5 hrs a day and hes been earning £100 for the week.
Esa asked for proof of his earnings but it was cash in hand so they took him of my claim.
Anyway his work finished last friday so do i have to ring and ask them to put him on my claim again or can i do it on line instead.

BenefitsTrainingCo

Hi ollieandduke, 

Unfortunately you can't do this online, you'll need to phone them and tell them. They may send out a ESA3 form which is a review form for you to declare the change in circumstances. They shouldn't have taken your husband off your claim though anyway, they should have just taken his income into account minus any disregards and pay you what you were due. Anyway, the first thing to do is phone and tell them to get the ball rolling.

Lee

ollieandduke

Thank you x

poppy123456

ollieandduke said:

My husband was taken off my joint claim of esa in july last year.
Hes been working 2 days a week for 5 hrs a day and hes been earning £100 for the week.
Esa asked for proof of his earnings but it was cash in hand so they took him of my claim.
Anyway his work finished last friday so do i have to ring and ask them to put him on my claim again or can i do it on line instead.

You'll need to ring them. Are you claiming Income related or Contribution based ESA? If it's Income Related then any earnings he had over £20 per week would have affected your ESA £1 for £1. This means if he earned £100 per week then your ESA should have been £80 less per week. Even if it was cash in hand.

ollieandduke

I was income related but when they took im off my claim i got contribution based  i get £109 per week now thats why i want to ask if he can go back on my claim. Im just so scared they will say i have to reapply again and stop my esa it was awful going through the first esa assesment ive got it till 2019 and dont want to lose the year ive got left

CockneyRebel

ESA is not time limited and can be reviewed at any time so 2019 may or may not be when you have a reveiw.
As per Lee's advice you should phone and get the ball rolling

CR

ollieandduke

I rang esa and was told i had to fill in an esa3 form to report a change of circumstance that my hubby is coming back on my esa claim. They say i need proof his work as ended and when. My hubby was self employed and got paid in cash. But he as receipts for some of the jobs hes done.
Would this be proof as we have no other he only gave receipts when he was asked for one.

ollieandduke

Forgot to say in my last post esa say my next review will be 25th march next year i will get a form sent out to fill in and this will determine whether i get another assesment or not

ollieandduke

Right latest update. Esa sent my form and its stating that i need to fill in the form if i want to go from IR esa to CB esa which im already on. Im totally confused ive rang them again and asked about the form the bloke said you havent got to fill in the form cus your already on CB esa so dont fill it in. He looked at the job my hubby had and said you shouldnt have been put on CB esa your hubby was only working 12 hours a week. I just dont get it.

BenefitsTrainingCo

Hello ollieanduke

No wonder you are confused.

I hope I have got this right.  You were on CB and IR ESA, was this about £173 a week? When your husband started working this was reduced to just CB ESA of £109 a week?

I am assuming that you don't get PIP and your husband does not claim carers allowance? If you don't claim these benefits you should think about whether you can claim. Please post again if you need support on this.

I suspect that as you could not provide proof of your husband's income ESA have assumed that your husband worked more than 24 hours a week and this stopped your IR ESA claim.  You should have had a decision stating this, however you may have also had a decision that stopped IR ESA but did not make it clear why it was stopping. As this was not the case you can challenge the original decision to stop IR ESA if the decision was made less than 13 months ago.  But you may need some evidence even if it is a receipt of the work he has done and payment received. In addition if he has kept accounts of his work these can be given as evidence. 

As for your current claim if you want to get back onto IR ESA you need to complete the form.  In regards to your husband ending self employment, maybe you could show from your bank statements that no other income apart from CB ESA has gone into yours and your husband's accounts. 

I hope this helps

Maria