Benefit help and advice

mwesty

Hey everyone, I’m Martin 


I work 30 hours week 
Partner does not work
4 children ages 2 - 12 
I would really love some help and advice as a partner to my fiancé who has recently been diagnosed with a mental health disorder (borderline personality disorder) along with anxiety and depression. It was diagnosed in may 2022 after a break down she suffered in December 2021 and the following months reaction to this means we pursued a professional opinion which revealed a long term mental issue which had been since she was a child and just been hiding it and/or ignoring it.

So as her partner I’ve tried to keep everything together but it’s been tough both mentally and financially for myself. Not after any sympathy 😂 but it seems to get help from the government (DWP and local council) is like getting blood from a stone.

So I worked 40 hours 5/7 days a week before this and was told by a doctor in January my partner could not be left to look after herself and children so from January - June I had to take unpaid emergency leave from work. Totally unpaid.

We claimed UC before this and still continue this. We provided a fit note in April which was backdated to January 2022 and have supplied another one from April 2022 - January 2023

We was told may she might be entitled to PIP which she claimed and was awarded standard living rate and standard mobility rate.

We have recently had our finances looked at as we have fell behind with bills and wanted to see if we was entitled to any help as UC had told us we wasn’t apart from PIP.
I returned to work June at reduced hours 30 and reduced days 4/7 to be able to care and support my partner.

we have now been told we could of been entitled to ESA and LCWRA along with myself should of been told l could claim carers allowance while I was off work. None of this was told to us and after a a phone call with UC they have said that the evidence is on our journal and she should have been sent for ESA AND LCWRA back in may. 

So we have now filled the forms in but wanted to know what we both should have been entitled too and if we should have any award backdated ? It’s all a bit of a minefield to me

thabk you in advance for any advice 

poppy123456

ESA is a separate beneft and can only be claimed if the correct amount of NI contributions were paid from doing some work in the previous 2 tax years. If your partner has worked and claims New style ESA there's no financial gain anyway because it's just deducted in full from any UC entitlement.

LCWRA is part of UC and if found to have this they will be entitled to an extra £354.28/month from the 4th month after they reported their condition, providing they sent a fit note within 7 days of this and continued to send them without any gaps until a decision is made on the work capability assessment.

However, backdated fit note aren't usually accepted so it will be done to a decision maker to decide whether they accept it.

You don't need to claim Carers allowance to be entitled to the carers element of UC. All you need to do is report a change of circumstances, the report being their carer for at least 35 hours per week. Your UC maximum entitlement will then increase be £168.81/month. Whether that will be backdated will again be down to a decision maker to decicde.

mwesty

Thank you for your reply, my partner hasn’t worked since june 2020 but had maternity leave up until January 2021. Since then she has not worked. 

We told UC that my partner couldn’t work due to her condition in January 2022 and provided a sick note covering jan 2022 till jan 2023.
I was then offf work from jan - June unpaid and UC didn’t send my partner forward for any assessment until I complained 2 weeks ago which they admitted she should have been sent around may time.
I just wanted to know if because of UC error I would have a case for backdating both ESA AND LWC which they believe she will be in the support group for due to therapy not knowing when she would be well enough to work 

durhamjaide2001

Welcome to the community Martin 

poppy123456

ESA is a separate benefit and you don't claim this. You're claiming UC which is completely different to ESA. For UC it is known as LCWRA.

You said here.

mwesty said:

 We provided a fit note in April which was backdated to January 2022

As i advised, they don't usually accept a backdated fit note and it will be down to a decision maker to make that decision.
If she's found to have Limited Capability for Work Related Activity (LCWRA) the extra money will be paid from the 4th month after you reported her health condition/sent her first fit note.

mwesty

Superb thank you, we have a phone call at 12.10pm today so thank you so much for clearing this up. Hopefully she can get what she deserves and l can continue supporting her with her private care 

Alex_Scope

I'm glad to see the community has been able to support you @mwesty and let's hope so yes

Let us know how everything goes, and please don't hesitate to ask if you need anything else.

mwesty

Thank you everyone, I received a letter today from DWP and was awarded Carers Allowance for 1 month in may but have been told l should of been receiving Carers Element from 4/5/2022 so have asked UC to take a look at that. 

My partner has had 1 phone call from ESA and filled a LWC form off but nothing heard from them yet apart from a phone call from ESA who have made another appointment on the 4th January I think to check up on her. But no awards or updates as yet 

calcotti

Posted in wrong thread!

L_Volunteer

You are welcome @mwesty. It is the very least you deserve. 

It sounds really positive that you received a letter from DWP and were awarded Carers Allowance. Hopefully, UC will have a look at that though.

Additionally, hopefully, your partner will hear from them soon. Best of luck with the upcoming appointment.

Please feel free to let us know how things go and if you need any support in the meantime. We are all here for you and listening to you 

mwesty

Good afternoon,

So I had a phone call off UC today and they said they have turned down my UC element for carers as my partner only recieves Standard PIP living component and Standard PIP mobility component and although l care for her over 35 hours she would have to be getting the higher component of one of those? 

Can I just confirm that is correct 

Mike 

poppy123456

mwesty said:

Good afternoon,

So I had a phone call off UC today and they said they have turned down my UC element for carers as my partner only recieves Standard PIP living component and Standard PIP mobility component and although l care for her over 35 hours she would have to be getting the higher component of one of those? 

Can I just confirm that is correct 

Mike 

No, that's not correct. Any daily living part of PIP will qualify you to claim carers element.

mwesty

Once again UC just passing us over again even after 7 months of trying then ! 

I will ring and wait another 3 days now until they get back to me 🤬

Thank you so much for your reply 

L_Volunteer

That sounds really frustrating @mwesty. Have you managed to ring yet?

If so, I am just wondering how ringing has gone for you and if you would like to share more with us. Please don't hesitate to let us know if we can do anything else to support you.

We are all here for you and listening to you. You don't have to face this, or anything else, alone if you don't want to.

Take care for now and we will look forward to, hopefully, hearing from you again soon 

mwesty

Good evening, 

So we finally got some post through the door, and my partner has been awarded ESA of £77 backdated from Aug 2022.
So with this I will make a mandatory appeal asking if because of UC failings to put my partner forward for ESA and not even telling us even though they had her fit note and all details updated in her journal. This will be for the back claim till may (PIP award date) 

UC wouldn’t speak to me about Carers element instead updated my journal Friday that this will now be passed onto a decision maker and l will have to wait to hear reply.

With LCW/LCWRA there is still no decision and again we presume this will be the new year now. 

The one question I would like to ask is with the NHS on Tuesday we had a meeting to discuss my partners therapy and recovery going forward and they will give us some guidance this week so good news but with that should my partner not have been put in the support group of ESA as none of us believe that she would be ready for any kind of work for a considerable amount of time possibly even never as we are nearly a year into her condition deteriorating and we are just now finding help for he recovery ? 

Mark

In advance I would really like to thank everyone for there input in this as it is so stressful being told wrong things and still being told them by UC 

calcotti

mwesty said:

With LCW/LCWRA there is still no decision and again we presume this will be the new year now.

…. should my partner not have been put in the support group of ESA as none of us believe that she would be ready for any kind of work for a considerable amount of time possibly even never …

She cannot be put into the Support Group without a Work Capability Assessment decision. The ESA Support Group is equivalent to UC LCWRA. Whatever the outcome of the WCA the decision will be applied to both the ESA and UC claim. 

As advised earlier in the thread, claiming ESA will make no difference to your overall income because the ESA will be deducted from the UC.

poppy123456

mwesty said:

Good evening, 

So we finally got some post through the door, and my partner has been awarded ESA of £77 backdated from Aug 2022.

If you were claiming UC at that time and i think you were, reading back through the thread. Then you will now have an overpayment for UC because there's no financial gain to claiming both together.

mwesty

Oh right oh right ok, will
this be deducted in full next month from our UC ? 

poppy123456

Any back pay you received will not be deducted in full, you will be contacted in due course from UC and your future payments will be reduced to pay it back.

Going forward the ESA will be deducted in full so £333/month will be deducted from the UC but of course she will still receive the ESA every fortnight. Your overall benefit entitlement will remain the same.

mwesty

Hi guys,  hope you’re all well….

I have a positive update, the UC decision maker sent a letter on my journal today to say that we had missed the permitted time to notify them of this change BUT due to all circumstances previously explained and in there opinion special circumstances will apply and the Uc element will be backdated till 4/5/2022.

So that is great news but what I wanted to ask will this be like the ESA and be used as an income and be deducted from already received UC ? 

poppy123456

If it's the carers element you're talking about then no, this isn't deducted from your UC, it's an extra £168.81/month. Only carers allowance is deducted in full from the UC but this is a separate benefit, you can't claim this if you work and earn more than £132/week after deductions.