Any experience of the 'Entitled to' website?

Alex_the_lad

Hi!

I just wondered if anyone had experience of the 'Entitled to' website? Basically both my parents go into retirement this year and I've been trying to get an idea of what they may be able to get in terms of pension credit payments and council tax benefit. The site has given me an estimate of what thery would be entitled to but I just wondered if anyone had experience of the website in terms of accuracy. It's just that my parents have also had assessements through Age Concern and a local Welfare Rights Officer and all three assessments differ!

Please note that I am not trying to endourse the site and I apologise if I've breached any forum rules in this regard.

thefenman

Yes, I have and I can endorse its efficacy.

When my wife died a year ago, I lost a great deal of our joint incomes. Her State pension disappeared, of course, and it transpired that I would not be able to inherit any of her teacher's pension. I thought I was in for a very rough time financially.

However, a friend urged me to look at "Entitled to" and to my amazement, it came back with the information that I would be due a large chunk of housing benefit (I live in a Housing Association bungalow) and Council Tax relief - but, I thought, what do they know?

However, still being urged by my friend, I went off to the local Council office where I was told that there was a calculator on their own web site so armed with an application form, I went home to fill in my application.

In fact, "Entitled to" was very accurate though the Council calculator gave me even more benefit because they ignore for calculation purposes my war disability pension.

So, by all means run the findings past your parents' local council, you may be very pleasantly surprised. If you don't ask, you don't get and they can only say "No" if they have to.

Alex_the_lad

Many thanks for your advice 'Fenman' - I'm glad you found the site to be useful.

I've just used the 'Entitled to' calculator and then also the Pension Credit calculator on the Pension Service website. I'm getting two different figures! The figure from 'Entitled to' is much higher! Does anyone know if this is because the 'Entitled to' calculator includes a sum for Mortgage interest where as the other calculator may not?

bigbloke45

It's a really good site. You can use it as a "stepping stone" to claim benefits and you can use it for "what if" calculations i.e. to see how "rearranging" your assets can benefit you.

I hope this helps.

ktp1975

I have found that this site can sometimes give figures way over what people are actually entitled to. I used to be an advisor for the CAB and worked out benefit ammounts for clients. They would often come in with print-outs from entitled to which were way out of line. This was a year or so ago though so prehaps they have become more accurate now?

chesky369

If I were you, I'd definitely pop along to my local CAB and ask them to do a benefits check - it's what they do quite automatically and you will be able to ask them questions if there's something you dont' quite understand.