Benefits advice.

sandee55

Hi , thank you for accepting me. 
I currently receive New style Esa (cont based) and Universal Credit pay my housing .
My question is two fold. As I have a small ill health pension (£41 a week) I'm not entitled to the Ir top up .After 365 days, do I go into IR ESA, or do UC make up the shortfall? It runs out early dec. UC say I'm fit to work, but esa have not assessed me, which doesn't make it easy. 
Secondly, is UC taken as income for council tax as I moved recently,  and now have to pay £41 a month as I'm band b, They now take my UC and  ill heakth pensions and esa as income. 
If anyone can help please 

poppy123456

Contributions based ESA is paid for 365 days unless you're placed into the support group and then it's paid for as long as you remain in there. As it's ESA you're claiming and not UC then it's ESA that should assess you, I have no idea why UC assessed you. Have you received an ESA50 form? Claiming Limited capability for work through UC is similar to ESA but as you're claiming ESA I have no idea why you were assessed by UC. If you haven't been sent the ESA50 form then you should contact ESA and ask them why you haven't been sent this.

As you're claiming UC then your ESA will be deducted from this. There's no premiums paid with Contributions based ESA so the Income related part wouldn't be payable even if you weren't claiming the ill health pension. The pension doesn't affect your contributions based ESA because your pension is less than £85 per week. 

Council tax reduction isn't part of UC and needs to be claimed separately from your local council. 

sandee55

Thank you. UC assessed me on a uc50 form that was done before I claimed ESA. I was getting wtc but a change in circs meant I had to claim UC. I claimed UC in April 17th, 2017. I then claimed new style esa in July 2018, when my health detiorated. UC said I had to do the assessment and took 11 months to assess me. 9 months after claiming UC, I filled in an assessment for esa, which was more detailed. Included this in the UC assessment, but was turned down for UC, and have to work search although the Dr is still signing me off. To date no assessment for UC . I don't do things the easy way !