Hi, my name is Janette11Janette! My husband and I signed on to UC in Feb 2019

Janette11Janette

My Husband and I signed on to UC 4th Feb 2019. He is disabled we showed them all relevant papers and were told you're first payment will be 6 weeks later and it was. We was not asked anything for 3 years. Then in March 2022 we were asked to go for an interview which we did, we were told by Brad you should have been asked for fit notes and had appointments to see a work coach at the job centre. We were totally ignored for 3 years. Brad told us that we should have been told about LWCRA and we would have to apply and he also said if you can obtain a fit note from Feb 2019 then you would be entitled to substantial back pay. After seeing GP we got hold of the fit note from Feb 2019 and subsequent ones, we applied for the LWCRA got it and was told by them that the award was given in March this year and it cannot go back to 2019 we are now fighting for this back pay because if we were asked in 2019 for fit notes we would have got them and if appointments were made we would have gone to them. He got full LWCRA because of Chronic COPD which he had in 2019 so we would have got it. Anybody have any ideas on this please.

calcotti

In my opinion, the first adviser who said you get the LCWRA backdated if you provided a backdated Fit Note was incorrect.

You may however have grounds for a complaint with a request for compensation on the grounds that you should, when you first claimed been told to get Fit Notes etc.

Are there messages in your UC journal from 2019 that reference the health situation?

Janette11Janette

No not at all we were not asked anything for 3 years totally ignored

poppy123456

When you first claimed UC it would have asked if you have a health condition, what did your husband put for that? If the health condition was declared then it would have asked him to provide a fit note.

Janette11Janette

We showed all relevant papers including pip which he gets my husband has many health conditions and we told them all of them 

Janette11Janette

We was never asked for fit note or an appointment With work coach for 3 years we were ignored

poppy123456

What i'm saying is, that when you first claimed UC it would have asked you if you have a health condition, if your husband ticked yes then that would have prompted it to ask for a fit note.

You can certainly do what calcotti advised and put in a complaint.

Janette11Janette

When we first went to claim UC we told the advisor he was disabled and told them he has many illnesses it was the advisors who didn’t record the info properly and that’s why we were ignored for 3 years

Janette11Janette

Also we went to the job centre it was not done on line 

Janette11Janette

I would like advice on this problem as we are owed quite a lot of back dated LWRCA, its the Job centre's fault that we fell through the net. If we were asked for fit notes back in 2019 we would have got them, (we wasn't asked) if we was given an appointment for job search from work coach we would have gone (again we wasn't asked) please if anybody can advise please do

poppy123456

You were given advice twice yesterday to make a complaint about not being given the correct advice when you started your claim.

Are there any messages on your journal saying anything at all about his health condition? If there is then take some screenshots and send those. You can do that here.https://makeacomplaint.dwp.gov.uk/

Janette11Janette

No there has been no messages for 3 years nothing until March 2022 when we was picked up by job centre

poppy123456

If there's no evidence of ever mentioning his health condition then i'm not sure whether that will go against you.

I was going to advise you to look back through his journal right to the start of the claim to see what it says but I've looked back on my daughters journal to see what it says when i first claimed. I can see it says "health completed" but i can't click on it to see if there's any other information. I did of course report her health condition and provide the fit note. I don't know if "health completed" means a health condition was reported.

All you can do at this stage is put the complaint in.

calcotti

What did your husband’s Claimant Commitment say when he first claimed?

Janette11Janette

There was 2 ladies interviewing us I had to give iD which they photographed and bank details what we had in savings and pip papers they said nothing more than ok this is the amount you will get and it will be in six weeks that is it 

poppy123456

Janette11Janette said:

There was 2 ladies interviewing us I had to give iD which they photographed and bank details what we had in savings and pip papers they said nothing more than ok this is the amount you will get and it will be in six weeks that is it 

PIP has nothing to do with the work capability assessment so i'm confused why you had to show that. They wouldn't have known how much exactly you would have been entitled to until your statement was produced.

Can i just ask one thing, if his PIP includes the daily living part and you care for him for at least 35 hours per week, does your UC include the carers element?

calcotti

You haven’t answered the question I asked earlier

calcotti said:

What did your husband’s Claimant Commitment say when he first claimed?

When you claim UC you each have to agree a Claimant Commitment saying what you will have to do in return for getting UC. Normally a claimant is expected to spend 35 hours/week looking for work. If his Claimant Commitment was restricted that would indicate that they accepted that he had a limitation on his ability to work and that would be evidence to support a complaint.

Janette11Janette

We just told them we were getting PIP although they did not need to know we were open with everything.  On their computer they told us what we would get after the 6 weeks they said no more about work commitments or anything like that, this is why our claim is a shamble this is why I am saying we have been ignored for 3 years, and we  have been paid as a disabled person and I am his carer he gets middle rate care.

Biblioklept

@Janette11Janette do you have an online claim with UC where you log online and manage it or is yours a telephone and paper claim? 

Typically if you've not reported it through the health condition bit on the online application and provided fit notes they won't backdate but you do have a good argument for being misadvised. It's whether you can evidence that which is the problem. 

Do you have an online claim or how do you get in touch with UC? As you said you set it up in the job centre

Janette11Janette

Of course we have an on line journal and it’s totally empty from Feb 2019 to March 2022 nothing was sent to us and we asked nothing it wasn’t until March 2020 that they even asked for fit notes as mentioned we have got it back dated to Feb 2019

Biblioklept

Not everyone has an online journal so I was just checking it wouldn't be uncommon for it to get missed on a telephone claim.