Pension Credit Guarantee

paulypost wrote: »

Mother-in-law moved in with us a couple of years ago. Recently we decided to let the DWP know about the change of address without giving any thought to the possibility that this might impact her state benefits. She gets a State Pension, Attendance Allowance and Pension Credit Guarantee. During the “address change” phone call we were informed that she would now lose the Severe Disability portion of the Pension Credit of £60+ “because she is no longer living alone”, which prompted us to (unsuccessfully!) attempt to rewind on the change of address which we thought would be simply an admin matter. There was also mention of reviewing the Assessed Income Period which in 2009 at age 93 was considered indefinite. Yes, she is now 101 (and going strong)
My questions:-

• If she loses the guaranteed portion of pension credit, what other benefits will she automatically lose?
• If the DWP decide to reverse the 2009 decision of an indefinite AIP, can we appeal?
• If there is a reduction in total benefits, how far back could the DWP claim for re-payment go?
• Any suggestions from anyone please?!

From the time your MIL moved in with you she was no longer entitled to the Severe disability premium on her guarantee Pension Credit. Her AA would not be affected.

If the removal of the SDP means that she is no longer entitled to guarantee pension credit then she would be subject to an overpayment of (both the SDP and) the GPC.

For anyone who has an indefinite assessed income period this can only be reviewed or stopped if she has a change of circumstances. One of these is if she is no longer entitled to Pension Credit. In fact if she is no longer entitled to PC then she wouldn't need an assessed income period!

So the question is whether without the SDP she is still entitled to some PC?

If she is then the indefinite assessed income period should remain.

Any overpayment can be claimed back to the date the overpayment happened - in this case, the date she moved in with you.

The overpayment can be appealed. Your MIL would have to have good reason to appeal this as notification of the change of address should have been made (the assessed income period does not cover this)

You could argue that given her age she was unaware of this but they may argue that you/partner should have done this for her (have you got Power of Attorney for her in place?) Dose she have the means to pay back any overpayment? Savings for example? She could arrange a repayment plan if this is the case and you never know they may write it off.

I would wait and see what happens next and take it from there. AgeUK can be supportive in these cases.

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/Factsheets/FS48_Pension_Credit_fcs.pdf?dtrk=true (page 24 about assessed income period)

Edit Just reread your post.

Reviewing the assessed income period means that it may now end/or end date changed.

They cannot reverse the date of an assessed income period.

Just a thought - which may, or may not be worth pursuing.

Once her SDA allowance eligibility ended because she was no longer living alone, then someone could have claimed carers allowance (the same value as SDA), provided they satisfied these criteria:
https://www.turn2us.org.uk/Benefit-guides/Carer-s-Allowance/What-is-Carer-s-Allowance#guide-content

If there is someone who could claim CA now, consider claiming.

You could try the argument that if someone could have claimed CA when she first moved in then (perhaps) can this lost household income be taken into account when arriving at the over payment (o/p). Probably very unlikely that the DWP will accept this (as it's a different benefit paid to a different person) - but might be worth a go.
Generally o/p's are calculated after deduction of any eligible other benefits which the individual would have been entitled to if not receiving the benefit for which they were not eligible (and are now being asked to repay).
If you (or partner) are you MIL's appointee and could have claimed CA in place of your MIL's SDP, then it's worth a go. I don't know if there is any case law on this particular circumstance? But it may be worth exploring as the SDP annual o/p is c. £3.2k.