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ESA/PIP & Inherantance

Como

hi, I claim ESA (support) for my wife and I.
Both of us receive Pip.

My wife lost her mother this past April and is to be left £125000 from the Will.

We live 400 miles from rest of family so have decided to buy a house from this money.

After chatting on telephone to DWP (worried about our benefits).
The lady listened to us and told me that soon as money was in bank account, we have to write a letter explaining that we are to buy a house for us to live.

This lady said we would have our ESA suspended until things were sorted out. She reckoned though that because we were buying a house and not going to say start a business to make money.
The lady said this would probably be sorted within a month.

What do you guys make of this, do you reckon this is correct, have any of you been down this road plus do think we will lose our benefit's.

Regards
Como

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Comments

poppy123456

Hi,

Sorry for your loss. When you rang DWP you were actually speaking to someone from a call centre and not somwone from DWP. They have very little benefits knowledge and i wouldn't recommend anyone ring them for advice.

When you receive the money into your bank you will need to report the changes and all your means tested benefits will stop.

If any part of your ESA is contributions based then this will continue because it's not means tested. Once you buy your house you will then be able to have your ESA recalculated to include the income related top up.

If all your ESA is Income Related then it will all stop. If you're not sure whether any part of your UC is contributions based then you will need to ring them and ask, they will be able to look at your claim and tell you exactly.

Once your money drops below £16,000 you will then be able to reclaim benefits but it will have to be Universal Credit that you claim because new claims for Income Related ESA are no longer possible..

You can buy a house with the money you'll receive but in the meantime your money will not be disregarded while you look for a house to buy.

poppy123456

poppy123456 said:

Once your money drops below £16,000 you will then be able to reclaim benefits but it will have to be Universal Credit that you claim because new claims for Income Related ESA are no longer possible..

Thinking about this more. If your ESA is all Income Related your money will stop but if your claim remains open as a NI credits only claim then it maybe possible to start the claim back up as a payment claim but i'm not 100% sure on this. I'm sure someone will know for sure once they see this.

calcotti

poppy123456 said: Thinking about this more. If your ESA is all Income Related your money will stop but if your claim remains open as a NI credits only claim then it maybe possible to start the claim back up as a payment claim but i'm not 100% sure on this.

I have read of instances where DWP have allowed this but they shouldn’t. There is no such thing as an ESA Credits only claim. There is claiming NI credits on the basis of LCW but this is not an ESA claim. Therefore there isn’t a claim to start up again. Nonetheless, as per my opening sentence, DWP do sometimes appear to behave as if there is.

As you said in your initial advice, first step is for OP to confirm what type of ESA they have.