moving in with partner, i am on lcwra, he receives standard allowance

buildupbuttercup

me and my partner are both 20 and currently staying in ymca supported housing. hopefully i will be able to receive a gold band due to my mental health and we will be able to move out together into a council house, however we are very confused as to how this will affect our benefits. 

i receive standard allowance plus lcwra bonus - 680 altogether
he receives standard allowance - 340
we would claim housing element also but unsure of the amount we would receive. my partner is also looking for work and planning to work as much as full time eventually. he has been told by his ymca support worker that he is not eligible for jsa for some reason.

would we have to start new UC applications to merge our benefits? would i have to be assessed again? if so would there be a period of time where we aren't in receipt of any money? 

how much would be taken if my partner were to start working? 

thanks

Adrian_Scope

Hello @buildupbuttercup. I'm glad to read things are going well and you're beginning to look at moving together. Have you looked into PIP for yourself at all?

When you join claims on UC you would do this via your current logins (via Homepage - Report a Change - Living with a partner), your individual logins will remain the same but you'll then see you are both on the claim together. When it's time to make this change one of you would 'request a joining code' and the other would select that they have a joining code and be prompted to enter it. Joining claims won't trigger a reassessment for LCWRA, this should transfer to your joint claim with you.

With regards to amounts, your claim would look like this:
£488.59 - Joint standard allowance, under 25
£341.20 - LCWRA
£??? - Housing

Be aware that these amounts are set to change in April 2021.

With housing, if you are placed in a council house together, your full rent would be covered and added to the amounts above (minus any deduction for spare rooms or rent-free weeks). If you rent privately instead, you'd be entitled to the Local Housing Allowance rate for a 1 bedroom in the area you live. This amount varies across the country but you can calculate yours here: https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk

Once your partner starts work, because you receive LCWRA he will have a work allowance. If you're renting this will be £292 a month. This is the amount he can earn before any deductions are made to your joint UC. After this amount they lower UC by 63p for everyone £1 he earns. 
As an example, if he earned £500 a month, you'd have £131.04 deducted from your total UC, but still have his full wages of £500.

Sorry that's a lot of information all at once. If you need any of it explained in more detail please let me know.

buildupbuttercup

Adrian_Scope said:

Hello @buildupbuttercup. I'm glad to read things are going well and you're beginning to look at moving together. Have you looked into PIP for yourself at all?

When you join claims on UC you would do this via your current logins (via Homepage - Report a Change - Living with a partner), your individual logins will remain the same but you'll then see you are both on the claim together. When it's time to make this change one of you would 'request a joining code' and the other would select that they have a joining code and be prompted to enter it. Joining claims won't trigger a reassessment for LCWRA, this should transfer to your joint claim with you.

With regards to amounts, your claim would look like this:
£488.59 - Joint standard allowance, under 25
£341.20 - LCWRA
£??? - Housing

Be aware that these amounts are set to change in April 2021.

With housing, if you are placed in a council house together, your full rent would be covered and added to the amounts above (minus any deduction for spare rooms or rent-free weeks). If you rent privately instead, you'd be entitled to the Local Housing Allowance rate for a 1 bedroom in the area you live. This amount varies across the country but you can calculate yours here: https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk

Once your partner starts work, because you receive LCWRA he will have a work allowance. If you're renting this will be £292 a month. This is the amount he can earn before any deductions are made to your joint UC. After this amount they lower UC by 63p for everyone £1 he earns. 
As an example, if he earned £500 a month, you'd have £131.04 deducted from your total UC, but still have his full wages of £500.

Sorry that's a lot of information all at once. If you need any of it explained in more detail please let me know.

Thanks for your reply, was very helpful. Could I ask what the benefit of applying for PIP would be? I thought it was the case that any amount of money I got from other benefits would be deducted from my UC anyway so I would only end up with the same amount of money. I did look into applying for ESA at the same time as applying for  UC but something to do with tax meant I couldn't apply until the next financial year. Could a bad result in applications for either of these benefits effect my claim for UC? 

calcotti

PIP is ignored as income for UC purposes. 

If you were awarded Daily Living PIP then your partner would be able to say that they care for you and your joint UC would go up with the addition of a carer element (currently £162.92/month).

If you are thinking of doing this your partner should post inform UC that they are caring for you and that you are applying for PIP. If they do this they should be able to get the carer element backdated should your PIP claim be successful.

(The reason JSA and ESA cannot be claimed is because they are based on previous NI  contributions, In any case JSA or ESA would be deducted from UC.)

Adrian_Scope

Hello @buildupbuttercup, I hope everything is going well?

As @calcotti mentioned, PIP is ignored as income, so wouldn't impact your UC at all, it would just be additional money to help you.
If you were able to claim ESA and JSA then these would both be counted as income and deducted from you UC. 

buildupbuttercup

@calcotti @Adrian_Scope thanks so much for your replies, i think i will look into claiming PIP & carers allowance as soon as possible. i have a friend with similar but not the same (& different severity/frequency/etc.) disability issues to me and they were rejected for having PIP a year or so ago so that sort of scared me off from trying to get it. 

is the requirements for getting PIP the same as UC LWRA or is it harder to get? my friend thought it might be harder to get than UC. if i was disallowed from getting PIP would it effect my other benefits? thanks so much !

calcotti

Applying for PIP but being unsuccessful would have no impact on your other benefits.
LCWRA and PIP are different, I don’t think saying one is harder than the other is helpful.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/pip/

buildupbuttercup

@calcotti thanks for the reply. ive looked more into eligibility for PIP and think my friend must have just misunderstood who PIP is for. thanks as this has helped me feel a bit less afraid of the application process and i will be getting my partner to help me kick off the process by having him phone dwp on my behalf on monday to request application forms : )

Adrian_Scope

Fingers crossed for your @buildupbuttercup. When filling out the PIP forms it's worth having a read through this: https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/56365/pip-form-filling
Please keep in touch and let us know how you get on.