SDP removed

ramaq

Earlier today my ESA wasn’t paid in as regular. I’m a long term disabled. All my life. 

Rang ESA this afternoon and was told there was a banking error but will be sorted out by the end of the day.

Then got a phone call from someone from ESA who said I had been receiving SDP - severe disablement premium - in my allowance but at the same time someone else was claiming carer’s element in their Universal Credit for caring for me. You can’t get both and it both were being paid since 2019.

He said the SDP will be removed from my ESA and the difference will be sent within a day or two. And from hereafter I will receive the ES a minus the SDP. He also stated that it will be passed on to a senior investigation officer who will look into weight as to what has occurred.

I informed him that I was not aware of anyone receiving carers element for me in their UC. He stated that I should have got a letter 2019 stating such and that if I disagreed with it then I should have told them. I told him that I never received this letter and do not recall ever receiving anything like that.

After the phone call I did make a few enquiries, and it seems that my ex partner started claiming UC in 2019. She showed me her journal entry from 2019, where she wrote that she was caring for me but did not want to receive any payment for it. She does spend some time with me - helping me out as we have a teenage child too -  but does it out of humanitarian and personal reasons. She said she specifically made it clear to UC about this then. She has today sent a journal entry to them stating this again and the situation as such.

Any thoughts on what to do?

calcotti

Has she not noticed that her UC statements have been including the carer element?

if she does less than 35 hours of care she is not entitled to the carer element anyway. If it has been paid in error she will have to pay it back.

ramaq

So they will reinstate mine? Because that is all what I care about

calcotti

ramaq said:

So they will reinstate mine? Because that is all what I care about

DWP are going to have to decide who has been incorrectly paid. One of you has been overpaid and will have to pay back the overpayment.

easy

If the mistake was owing to the DWP you should find that it is not recoverable. 

calcotti

easy said:

If the mistake was owing to the DWP you should find that it is not recoverable. 

I just thought of that and came back to add it to my earlier post!
For the ESA SDP if It has been overpaid but is due to official error then it will not be recoverable.
For the UC carer element if it has been overpaid it is recoverable even if due to official error.

ramaq

So what would be the way forward? I assume they will ask us both by writing. 

I will say what I did today that I wasn’t aware. But they saying that they sent the letter in 2019 and I had to tell them if it wasn’t right. 

Ex can tell them what she said today, that she told them 2 years ago. That she didn’t want to claim carers element. 

So I guess they will have to decide themselves whose in the wrong. If they want the money back then they would probably go with wife. But if they do then she has a a good argument too.

Out of curiosity, aren’t the DWP at fault too? Should they not have stopped giving me SDP once wife’s CE was implemented? After all they are saying they did send the letter informing me that someone was caring foe me.

calcotti

ramaq said: Out of curiosity, aren’t the DWP at fault too? Should they not have stopped giving me SDP once wife’s CE was implemented? After all they are saying they did send the letter informing me that someone was caring foe me.

If they decide they should not have paid you SDP then I think that is a good argument that it’s their fault and therefore ‘official error’ and non recoverable.

As woodbine commented earlier if ex no longer gets carer element then you are entitled to the SDP.