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Good morning,
I’ve just been reading the posts of the other community members and I’m sorry that you have had such a stressful time. Could you let me know that my understanding of what has happened is as follows? -
1. Your ESA stopped in 2018 because you failed to attend a health assessment. You challenged this decision and either the DWP Decision Maker or the Tribunal agreed with you that this decision was not correct.
2. When your ESA stopped in 2018 did you apply for Universal Credit? Did the DWP tell you that you had to claim UC to get some money coming in and to get your housing costs paid. This advice was not entirely correct but at the end of the day you may have felt you had no choice but to claim UC.
3. Making a claim for UC immediately terminates your ESA claim and, in most cases, your Housing Benefit claim. You should have been paid ESA from the date your ESA stopped until the date of your UC claim. Did this happen ?
4. You say you are getting UC and the disability element – do you mean the LCWRA element?
5. When you claim UC usually people need to claim a Housing Costs Element to go towards paying their rent. Was this explained to you, and did you do this? In some circumstances, for example, if your accommodation is temporary accommodation, you must still claim Housing Benefit.
6. Council tax support is not a social security benefit, and it sounds as if this stopped when your Housing Benefit claim stopped. Have you not received any Council Tax support since 2018? Did you know that you had to contact your council to claim this?
It is really concerning that it appears that you weren’t given the help you needed when you made your UC claim. So the community can help you with your enquiry can you share with us the information referred to above and the date you claimed UC.
Sue
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