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We want to hear from you: please tell us about your experience of the online community.

Lost PIP Tribunal

barbara44

I am **** years old, retired with both lumbar and spinal stenosis, multiple joint osteoarthritis, HBP, high cholesterol and several allergies.I have been suffering anxiety, depression and panic attacks for the past 2 years. I had DLA ( higher mobility and middle rate care) from 2012 to 2017. My PIP claim reduced this to lower rate care and no mobility. I asked for Mandatory Reconsideration which failed so I decided to go down Tribunal route. I had to wait for 64 weeks for a tribunal date. The tribunal panel asked DWP to reassess and that new assessment said I should have higher rate care and lower rate mobility. However the DWP Decision Maker totally ignored this new assessment and recommended the appeal be turned down. I had a 1 hour 45 minute hearing that was upsetting and humiliating and the result was the appeal failed. I have been waiting 4 weeks for a Statement of Reasons and once received I need to decide what to do next. I can either take my case to the higher tribunal or submit a completely new claim as from now ( the Judge on the panel suggested this might be the best route to go down especially as my degenerative conditions had deteriorated considerably during the last 18 months. Has anyone had these kind of problems, I am at my wits end as I am now virtually housebound and depend so much on my family.

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Comments

steve51

Hi @barbara44

Welcome to our online community/family.

I am very very sorry to hear about your problems with your pip.

Sorry to ask but did you have any help & support with things??

Please please let me help you with things??

Here’s some info for you below:

https://www.scope.org.uk/advice-and-support/further-appeal-upper-tribunal

@steve51

markyboy

You can only get standard mobility if you are reassessed over 65 years of age

poppy123456

Hi,

I'm sorry to hear this. Once you receive that statement of reasons the only way you'll be able to take this claim any further is if an error in law has been made. To find this then you'll need to get expert face to face advice from an advice centre near you. If no error in law has been made then you won't be able to take it further.

You won't be able to start a new claim because you are over 65. It's not clear in your post if you completely lost your award award completely or whether you still have your daily living award? If you lost your award completely then you will only be able to claim attendance allowance and there's no mobility part to this.

Pippa_Alumni

Just wanted to say welcome to the community @barbara44, and I'm so sorry to hear about your experiences. It sounds like it's been a long drawn-out process for you and I'm truly sorry you've had to deal with that alongside everything else.

Glad to see you've had some input from our community members. You're among friends here, so feel free to get involved and we'll advise where we can.

barbara44

Thank you for your comments. I did retain the middle rate Care component when I changed to PIP from DLA. Am I right in thinking that I can ask for a re-assessment as my conditions have deteriorated considerably in the last two years? I do intend making an appointment with CAB but am still waiting for my "Statement of Reasons" to come from the Tribunal service. ( I requested this 5 weeks ago)

poppy123456

Yes, you can request a worsening of condition but you won't be able to claim the mobility part now because of your age. I would advise you to get some expert advice regarding this because there's no point putting in a change of circumstances if you can't score the points for Enhanced daily living. There's also no middle rate of PIP, it's standard or Enhanced.

barbara44

Update on the above. Got my Statement of |Reasons, eventually, and yet again wondered whose it was - so much twisted information in it. During my tribunal the judge assumed I was getting the revised awards that an Appeals Writer had recommended in their assessment. She got DWP Processing Officer to check this. She confirmed I wasn't and had been told by her Manager to inform the panel to ignore the Appeals Writers recommendations.!! I went to Higher Tribunal with this but they said there had not been an Error of Law, refused me the right to appeal against the decision, but the attached letter invited me to appeal anyway. At the moment I have gone down the route of writing to the DWP and asking why " the DWP Decision Maker said they agreed with all the HCP's descriptors in the reconsideration requested by HMCTS prior to my tribunal, which would have increased my awards to Higher Care and Standard Mobility recommended by an Appeals Writer, but then asked the Tribunal panel to oppose my appeal." My first HCP's report took 34 minutes, the reconsideration one took 104 minutes. HDisgusted!!
Having dealt with HCP's, DWP, Social Services etc during my career as an Extracare Housing Manager, I have to say I have never experienced such confusion and gross incompetence. Heaven help anyone who isn't used to dealing with such people.

karenat35

Hi babara44 I wondered if you managed to get any further with the dwp, I am awaiting my SOR I applied for on the 19th September, I rang court today to be told the judge had asked for more time to complete it, I told the lady how these delays were making me even more ill and she said as it had been over 70 months since my first appeal, she was not surprised. I did take a rep with me from the local advice centre but he wasn't any help at all and caused more stress and delays than the DWP. As soon as I get my SOR I am going to see a solicitor which I wish I had done from day one.
Because the DWP say I shouldn't have recieved high rate mobility DLA or standard rate PIP ( even though I had seen one of their Drs a HCP and 2 compliance officers ) over 17years since my accident , so my PIP was stopped completely in March 2018 and I owe them almost £44,000 . With the amount being so high I have been suicidal on a number of occasions leading up to the first tribunal. If the amount wasn't so high I would have given up by now, but everyone that knows me think I have been unfairly treated as they know the problems and treatments I have had over the years. So chin up it could be worse, but I do hope you get the outcome you obviously deserve.

barbara44

Hi Karenat35. Thank you for asking about my "saga". Unfortunately I did not get any answers to the questions I asked. All I was told by the DWP was the Decision Maker did not have to accept the re-assessment and the decision was final. I then went down the route of applying for a Blue Badge directly to my Local Authority.This was also a complete farce. The Occupational Therapist made all the right noises, gave me loads of advice and made me walk 3 times the distance I would normally walk. I was refused a Blue Badge on the grounds that I managed to walk from the car park to the meeting room, therefore I would be able to access and walk round shops without needing Disabled Access parking. The result being I don't really go out anymore unless my family take me and drop me off. To call this benefit Personal Independence Payment is a joke as I now have very little independence. I can not re-apply at any time as I am now **** and 60 is the limit for applying for mobility allowance of PIP. Sorry this is not positive news and of no help to you at all except to highlight what a humiliating process this is. I do hope your outcome is much more satisfactory than mine. As for repayment of your past benefits, I was told by a benefits adviser that when I was overpaid Working Tax Credit a few years ago I could refuse to repay it as it was an error on the part of the DWP. I would take legal advice about this. Good luck. Barbara44

poppy123456

@barbara44 even though you are outside the age for reapplying for PIP, just so that you're aware the upper age for applying is state pension age and not 60.

I'm not sure why the benefits adviser told you that a working tax credits overpayment is an error of DWP because that's not correct. WTC is part of HMRC and not DWP.

pollyanna1052

Oh my word...these horror stories are mind blowing. I feel so sorry for all of you involved in such nightmares xx

karenat35

pollyanna1052 sorry for hijacking barbra44's post but my saga all started because someone I called a friend and neighbour reported me to the DWP. She was ordering things EVERYDAY online but would not answer the door to the postman, for years I took her parcels in then I got pneumonia as well as all my other problems and my husband had a bleed on his brain so I told her we were too ill to be knocked up by postman at 07.30 morning after morning so she reported me.
So a word of caution no matter how ill you are there are people out there who will turn on you in a heartbeat if they think you are getting more than them,
She by the way is claiming full RATE PIP for mental illness and mobility , but manages to drive herself and her husband around to go out and about shopping and she can catch a train alone to see her friends but claims to dwp she never leaves the house and cannot bend, even though she lifted me off the floor when I collapsed at home when I was alone for a while, which she now swears she didn't do. But I wouldn't report her because she does have some problems hopefully karma will come into play

So my word of warning is say nothing to anyone...….and if you do manage to get PIP for your medical problems, NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE THEY MIGHT BE WATCHING YOU. All my PIP was stopped because they saw me shopping on 2 occasions for 20mins ( being driven to aldi and home again not carrying anything) and going to the hospital for a blood test where they filmed my inside the hospital. Also saw me standing watching my hubby throw the ball for our dog for 10mins, the park is 200 foot away but we have to drive there because I can not walk it …… but hay hum I am as fit as a flea or so the tribunal says...I WISH

Chloe_Alumni

How are you both getting on @barbara44 and @karenat35?

karenat35

I think I am loosing my will to live, its the fact I have been classed a liar after struggling to manage my problem since 1993, that upsets me more than anything, My family and friends are all encouraging me to take it further even the solicitor I saw said if I had been charged with fraud he would have had it been thrown out of court, but because it was a civil case HE couldn't represent me. And my S.O.R arrived yesterday but the rep I had at tribunal still has all my medical records and has now gone on holiday again. So I don't know if I have the energy to continue but I have made an arrangement to see another solicitor but it costs money I cant afford to loose. So that's my tale of woe up to now xxxx

Chloe_Alumni

I'm sorry to hear this @karenat35. It sounds like the whole thing has been exhaustion for you.

It is completely up to you, but here is some information about upper tribunal and you may be able to access free advice through advice local.

Please do let us know how you get on.

Angela5144

my appeal is in may will this still go ahead?

poppy123456

Angela5144 said:

my appeal is in may will this still go ahead?

Hi,

The following information was given by another member of the forum who is a welfare rights officer. Whether it will be the same in May, i think you'll just have to wait an see what happens.

The current scenario is that all tribunal venues are shut and there are no oral hearings at all. Telephone hearings commence with immediate effect but most likely those where you have a rep will be postponed until they can get the bandwidth and organisation to enable conference calls. In the remaining cases a judge will preview the papers and call the appellant around the time the hearing is listed. They may also make separate calls to the DQM and medical professionals who might otherwise have sat with them. Some cases will be decided on the papers only but consent would ordinarily be needed for that. My personal guess would be that the only ones decided on the papers will be those where people have either consented to a paper hearing already or they’re one of Ernie Ryder’s “no brainier” cases i.e. those which ought to have been decided in favour much earlier.