APPOINTEE for Daughter UC

Hi,

That's a lot of questions, hopefully I can answer some of them. 🙂

1. It's best to apply for UC the day after her next ESA payment.
2. UC do prefer the claimant to have their own bank account, but can make allowances in some cases. If she would find it difficult to cope with the change in payment frequency with UC then I would recommend sticking with her fathers bank account if possible. If they won't allow it then at least she already has an account that can be used as a backup.
3. The passport is a very good form of photo ID. However, they usually need more than one form of ID from the claimant. It sounds like she may not have this, so would likely be asked to complete a biographical interview over the telephone. This is just asking questions that only she should know the answer to, generally regarding previous benefits from the latest ones I've seen. If she cannot manage the telephone then it is possible to have a home visit, but there are very long waits for these at the moment, so not recommended unless that is the only option.
4. That's good, makes the process slightly less complex.
5. Yes, I would recommend applying online as I find the journal very useful myself. Others prefer a phone claim though, so that's down to personal preference. Only thing I would say in this case is that you may be better off putting your details on the journal for message alerts (text and/or email) if your daughter is not able to reliably manage unexpected communication from the DWP.
6. That's good. She won't have any savings deductions for under £6k.
7. They don't generally ask for bank statements during the migration, and especially not when under £6k.
8. Transitional Protection only applies if legacy benefits added up to more than the new UC elements. As your daughter lives with you, I assume she does not get SDP with her ESA, so for this reason she will actually be over £100 a month better off on UC, so no Transitional Protection added in her case.
9. I would expect the ID stage to be where they ask to speak to your daughter, though they may decide to make an exception in this case.
10. She will be put into the LCWRA group of UC, which is equivalent to Support Group on ESA. There is no end date for this, it is an ongoing award, and it is currently rare for people on LCWRA to be reassessed. The bank statement reviews are random, so she could get one of those within a few weeks of migrating, or not at all for a year or even longer. There is no telling when anyone will get those, so best not to worry about them until you get asked.

Hopefully that helps. Please do ask again if there's anything you're still not sure on.

Hi,

There's no requirement to start the migration straight away. I recommended that in this case because your daughter will be financially better off on UC, so is technically losing money the longer it gets delayed. However, it sounds like money is not the priority here, so if she has an important event to complete at the end of September, then you can choose to wait until after that to start the migration. You may get another letter or a phonecall from DWP reminding you to migrate in the meantime. The only timescale recommendation we make for everyone on ESA is to wait until the day after an ESA payment to submit the UC application, as that helps make a smoother transition between the two.

Yes, you should put a message in the journal to explain your daughters situation. The journal is the main point of contact for UC. The call handlers on the telephone will generally just tell you to write in the journal anyway. It can take a while to get responses in the journal, just so you're aware of that. In this particular case, it may be possible for you to complete the whole migration without your daughter being involved, but that will be down to the discretion of the UC staff that you deal with.

You're welcome. I am sorry to hear there's so much going on for yourself and your family at the moment.

It's not true that UC do a review after 5-6 weeks unless they've recently introduced that. I've personally been on it for over a year now without a review.

The first payment is made around 5 weeks after submitting the application but that one isn't always correct. Some cases go through very easily, but others can take a few more weeks before things start to settle down. Generally I would expect it all to be correct by the second payment, around 9 weeks after submitting the application.