ESA Advice - Underpayments treated as income?

Blizanac
Blizanac Online Community Member Posts: 2 Listener
edited November 5 in Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)

Hello,

I need an advice as I am deaf.


Following the recent visit from my jobcentre advisor who informed me of the ESA underpayments related to the underpayments in premiums for 8 years that DWP owes me, I am due to be paid £25000. I need an advice about how to proceed with this as I am a bit confused. 


Although I was told by the advisor that the DWP is not allowed to treated this underpayments as an income, I worry that because I receive the ESA, I may have problems coming along. The thing is, for the purpose of receiving my ESA is that I am having an ongoing cancer treatment so I need to keep ESA). If my bank amount exceeds £16000 then I am losing the benefits. However, as this is underpayment, I believe that this is not even classified as savings. 


Furthermore, as DWP stated that they will start doing the bank accounts checks on people who receive the benefits. So, I need an advice on how to proceed with this matter. Do I need to inform the DWP about this, even if they are the ones who are paying me out.  Do I need to keep my current account up to £15000 in order to avoid the problem of "savings" even if this underpayments are not savings. And transfer the rest to other account? I worry that if I do so, this other account will be treated as "savings".

I would be grateful for any advice.

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  • Kimi87
    Kimi87 Online Community Member Posts: 7,773 Championing
    edited November 5

    Capital for benefits purposes includes not just the bank account you receive your payments into, but all your bank accounts.

    Your Income Related ESA will end once you apply for UC.

    If any of your ESA is Contributions Based, this converts automatically into New Style ESA as part of the migration process.

    New Style ESA or CB ESA neither of them are impacted by capital, generally pension payments is the only thing they'd be interested in.

    Advice given previously, my last paragraph also applies to this question:

    https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/139615/esa-underpayment-lump-sum-is-it-classified-as-an-income-savings-or-not

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