ESA/SDP and moving local authority area if offered social housing

livonia

Ok, this is a new post for myself as i accidentally have caused chaos adding a question to someone elses post about sdp so sorry about that, i can see how it gets confusing if too many new questions get added, but it seemed relevant.

So yes my support worker and myself together have worked out how much i would receive currently just on sdp, esa support group and my pip.  Its enough to cover my rent assuming i get offered an affordable rate as i am bidding on social housing to close to family as I am struggling living here alone.  I am looking at bid positions between 6 and 11 so there's some real hope that I might get offered something.  A friend got offered on no 7 position so it just depends on people ahead's circumstances/decisions.   I will definitely accept and it will be a different local authority even though it is where i lived 18 months ago. 

If parliament still haven't confirmed the amendment to the regulations they proposed in a june briefing,  providing protection to those of us on sdp, i am thinking to bite the bullet and NOT claim housing benefit because it would force me onto universal credit and i would lose sdp and of course new reassessment of fitness to work. Having only just been through reviews on pip and esa and I am not putting myself back in that process so soon it would simply break me.

 It will be a knock to my finances and I won't be able to have the home help and other things I pay for now out of my pip but I will be closer to my family who could do those things temporarily until I manage to get migrated.  Obviously in the future if migration hasn't happened, the regs havent' been confirmed or even I can't cope without having a helper in, well I will have to apply for uc but I am proposing trying without to start with.

has anyone done this?
I propose just updating dwp of a change of address for my esa/pip after i Have moved.
When the transitional arrangements are confirmed in parliament (I presume I am then safe to apply for housing benefit) .?

 I know its all if's and buts.

Its not fair to have to do this but I can't see any other way of avoiding the assessments and hoops moving to UC  will cause me by applying for uc before the transitional arrangements are in place 

poppy123456

HI,

Firstly, when a change of circumstances prompts a move to UC from a legacy benefit (natural migration) like ESA DWP should honour your ESA award and place you in the relevant group for UC, in your case this would be the LCWRA. However, as people have already experienced, this doesn't always happen even though it clearly states it should right here in the CPAG natural migration rules.

http://www.cpag.org.uk/content/ask-cpag-online-how-does-natural-migration-universal-credit-happen

This link can be quoted if there's a problem when claiming UC and being placed into the correct group. It also states in that link that about the future changes to those claiming SDP, which i'll quote here.

Some disabled claimants may be signficiantly worse off when they move onto UC because there are no disabiilty elements.  The government have announced that they are to introduce rules which protect some disabled people from being worse off by ensuring that they cannot transfer to UC by 'natural migration'

*please note that in bold above it does state that the government has announced that they are to introduce rules. This means that the rules haven't been introduced yet for those claiming SDP.

Im in a similar position to yourself and i also need to move house, if i stay with my local council then i can keep my housing benefit but if i changed local council then it will have to be UC, unless DWP announce those rules soon but no one knows when this will happen. I could also do the same as you and decide not to claim UC and keep claiming ESA with a change of address and just pay my rent myself. Doing it this way yes i could stay on ESA and SDP. However, this would really be defeating the object because i'd be worse off anyway because i'd have to pay my own rent, still have all my other bills on top of that and still have buy food etc etc. Would i be able to manage to do all of that on my ESA and PIP? No, i wouldn't. I'd most likely starve because i wouldn't be able to afford to eat on top of my rent and all my other bills.

What i'm saying is you really have to think to yourself, is losing £180 ish per month better or worse than losing all of my housing benefit? In my case, no it wouldn't be.

Also please bare in mind, whether you decide to move and remain on ESA or transfer to UC and be honoured your ESA award and be placed in LCWRA they can still reassess you at anytime. Will a house move and change of address prompt a reassessment? Who knows, you never know anything for sure with DWP.

The CPAG online advice for any benefits is great for all your information and is available through a quick google search.

Good luck with what ever you decide and lets hope DWP make that official announcement soon but i won't hold my hopes out too much, it's DWP after all.

livonia

poppy123456   this was in the budget concerning transitional protection for natural migrants to universal credit  if you search the budget policy for sdp you find this. page 9

no date in january given so its STILL NOT law.   

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/752208/Budget_2018_policy_costings_PDF.pdf