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Does he need to still go to the tribunal?

chrissy008

Hello, a friend of mine has an upcoming tribunal for his esa which was stopped, but he has just been accepted on UC, and has already had an advance payment, Does he need to still go to the tribunal? Please help as it is this Friday, struggling to get advice

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Comments

wilko

Hi @chrissy008, your first call should be to DWP for an explanation as what's going on, as why the tribunal was stopped. And ask because He has been accepted on to UC will he still need to attend a tribunal. Use the benefit checker on this site or others to see if you can get other benefits. Being on UC lumps all the benefits together so there maybe something you can claim.

BenefitsTrainingCo

chrissy008,

I agree with Mike that it is absolutely essential to go ahead with the appeal. It would be good to have got a postponement & then get help with writing a submission (& possibly representation, although that can be harder to get), but it's not absolutely necessary if your friend just wanted to get the hearing out of the way, which he may have done, in which case my advice would have been to attend the hearing.

Without getting face to face advice it's hard to be absolutely sure what the appeal is about, which is why getting someone to look at the paperwork would be preferable, if it can be obtained. Do you know now what happened? I'm assuming it was this Friday just gone that was the original hearing date.

The appeal is probably to do with limited capability for work, & if he wins, he could get extra money in his UC and/or not have to look for work.

It can be helpful to look at the ESA self-test to understand what did & didn't get awarded following his work capability assessment, & what he thinks should have been awarded, if that is what the appeal was about.

He almost certainly CANNOT revert to ESA if he wins the appeal. That's because claiming UC abolishes income-related ESA. If he was getting contributory ESA, then that's ok (it can come back), but it is not possible for income-related ESA to be regained now.

This means that his UC may be less than his ESA would have been (broadly, this is especially likely if he lives alone and gets PIP daily living component or DLA middle or higher rate care component). If that's the case though, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has said that people in that situation will get a payment to make up for at least some of the loss of income - we just don't know exactly when.

Whatever happened at the appeal (whether it went ahead or not), I think your friend would still benefit from face to face advice, partly because he almost certainly does have to stay on UC. Advice could be helpful to make sure his claimant commitment (what he has to do to get the benefit) is reasonable, as well as looking at the amount of money he's getting. Do make sure he's claimed council tax reduction too (that can often get missed on UC because it is NOT included in the benefit).

Will