PIP Abroad

Hi

Has anyone had any experience of the following?

PIP rules

My wife and I are fully aware that you can go abroad for up to 13 weeks without it affecting your PIP benefit and that for any holiday either at home or abroad and that you must inform DPW.

My wife has two sisters and their partners who live in their single storey houses in Spain.  They also have four cars between them.  This is an ideal situation for my wife and I as we both struggle with stairs and I can now only drive for very short distances.  Like many people my wife and I suffer with various ailments one of them been osteo arthritis in various parts of our body. In the warmer UK weather we don't seem to suffer as badly.

We also have a son and daughter and their families that live in Australia with a similar scenario ie single storey houses and four cars between them.  As a benefit to us our daughter's house also has a large pool. Both families will fully support us with our mobility needs and our daily needs.

Now both of my wife's sister's have invited us over for 3 months  each year and so has our son and daughter in Australia.  If things work out we would probably spend the summer in Spain ie June, July, August and the summer in Australia probably Jan to March.

I rang DWP with the query below and you would have thought that I had asked them to explain the theory of relativity.  The CS adviser didn't seem to have a clue and I got the response of I will have to find out and we will get back to you. 

This is the query.

My wife and I can go say to Spain first for 13 weeks and this would be classed as though we are still in the UK for the 104 weeks out of 156 weeks residency rule.  We are quite happy with this rule.

What I am trying to find out is if my wife and I could then go to Australia for 13 weeks but obviously during this 13 weeks our PIP payments would be suspended until we come back home.

We do appreciate that the second 13 week stint would be classed as been out of the UK in the 104 weeks in 156 weeks in the last 3 years calculation.  If  we would have to go through the very stressful assessment process again after the initial 13 weeks aboard then my wife and I would just have the first 13 week stint and we couldn't face the assessment process again. My last one in Oct of 2019 lasted approximately 90 minutes.

Apologies if I have waffled on a bit but I thought that maybe someone else on this forum has faced a similar dilemma.

Any information would be much appreciated.

Regards J