EMA help please

crazycurls

Hopefully someone can help me. Firstly if you could bear with me, a bit of backgound info.My husband had his own company I worked part time for it as well and we were comfortably off.

In January my husband had a stroke, this was devastating for us as a family. Suddenly we had no money coming in. Luckily we had some isa's tessa's etc we had accumulated over the years, but because of these we are ineligible for any benefit. We can not even get our council tax paid.

My husband has applied for DLA and if he gets it apparantly I may be able to get carers allowance. I can't get JSA as I haven't paid enough contributions and am looking after hubby anyway. My husband has enough but can't apply as he can't work. He was advised to apply for ESA.

So the upshot is we are living off our savings cashing stuff in to stave off repossession.

My daughter is at college and I had been giving her money every week for bus fares lunches etc now i have no money to do this. At the begining of february i tried to apply for EMA for her but was told I couldnt in that year.

I tried to reapply recently but was told as we earnt too much last year not to apply.This is crazy, since the 24th January we have had no money coming in. Nor is there much chance of that changing. I have even had to start selling all the shares I had got years ago (from building societies etc) and it couldn't be a worse time to sell they are worth peanuts compared to what they were.

I can't seem to get the EMA people to understand that it doesn't matter if we had earned a million pounds last year we won't ever now be getting more than DLA and carers and then when our savings have gone down to nothing I don't know income support? Can't they see this is an unusual case it's not like we've just lost our jobs and could potentially get another one. Surely this can't be right

Oldernotwiser

crazycurls wrote: »

Hopefully someone can help me. Firstly if you could bear with me, a bit of backgound info.My husband had his own company I worked part time for it as well and we were comfortably off.

In January my husband had a stroke, this was devastating for us as a family. Suddenly we had no money coming in. Luckily we had some isa's tessa's etc we had accumulated over the years, but because of these we are ineligible for any benefit. We can not even get our council tax paid.

My husband has applied for DLA and if he gets it apparantly I may be able to get carers allowance. I can't get JSA as I haven't paid enough contributions and am looking after hubby anyway. My husband has enough but can't apply as he can't work. He was advised to apply for ESA.

So the upshot is we are living off our savings cashing stuff in to stave off repossession.

My daughter is at college and I had been giving her money every week for bus fares lunches etc now i have no money to do this. At the begining of february i tried to apply for EMA for her but was told I couldnt in that year.

I tried to reapply recently but was told as we earnt too much last year not to apply.This is crazy, since the 24th January we have had no money coming in. Nor is there much chance of that changing. I have even had to start selling all the shares I had got years ago (from building societies etc) and it couldn't be a worse time to sell they are worth peanuts compared to what they were.

I can't seem to get the EMA people to understand that it doesn't matter if we had earned a million pounds last year we won't ever now be getting more than DLA and carers and then when our savings have gone down to nothing I don't know income support? Can't they see this is an unusual case it's not like we've just lost our jobs and could potentially get another one. Surely this can't be right

If your husband is classed as disabled you'll be able to get EMA reassessed but not in other circumstances, so if he gets DLA/ESA you should reapply. If he's refused then, I'm afraid, you'll remain ineligible and there's no point arguing about it.

Of course you'll be eligible for some means tested benefits when your savings dip below £16,000 and full entitlement when they reach £6,000.

mealone

Your husband must be awarded DLA care at middle or high rate care for you to be awarded carers allowance.

You have to be ill for 3 months and expected to be ill for another 6 before you are eligable to DLA, so if his doctors support his claim he is eligable for DLA. Have you spoken to them about claiming DLA and asked them if they would support his claim?

Dont fill in the forms yourself, ask for help because most people fail to get the correct award because the form is filled in incorrectly.

I hope your husband recovers well (or as well as he will) from his stroke and dont struggle alone, you can ask social services for a carers assessment before a DLA award and they may support your application too.

black_paw

good advice from above people can not better it . good luck

mountainofdebt

Sorry for not replying earlier but I wanted to check the advice I had been given and have only now been able to get around to doing it.

I was made unemployed in March and our household income for last year would have meant that our son, who is due to go into the sixth form in September wouldn't be eligible for EMA. I have been told twice that although we have to fill in the forms as per income last year, I should include a covering letter stating that I am now unemployed and send in copies of the relevant DWP letter etc.

To be honest its stupid to base eligibitility on last years income, especially as people's circumstances can change dramatically in such a short space of time.

[Deleted User]

mountainofdebt wrote: »

Sorry for not replying earlier but I wanted to check the advice I had been given and have only now been able to get around to doing it.

I was made unemployed in March and our household income for last year would have meant that our son, who is due to go into the sixth form in September wouldn't be eligible for EMA. I have been told twice that although we have to fill in the forms as per income last year, I should include a covering letter stating that I am now unemployed and send in copies of the relevant DWP letter etc.

To be honest its stupid to base eligibitility on last years income, especially as people's circumstances can change dramatically in such a short space of time.

It would be difficult to base it on current income as that can change from week to week or month to month,so far easier and less paperwork if based on previous tax year(as alot of benefits are),as an example student loans/grants for the coming year 2009/10 are based on income from 2007/8 not 2008/9

crazycurls

Wow this is a blast from the past.

I was posting on another subject and saw this, so thought I would round it off incase it comes up in a search by someone in a similar situation.

Basically don't bother to try to explain you will be wasting your time:mad: I can understand it had this been unemployment or similar ,as the situation could have changed but in this case my husband was lucky to be alive let alone walking speaking or working.

I offered a doctors letter detailing the the state my husband was now in but no, there had to be all the form filling and official award of DLA first. Bureaucracy gone mad, there was no way on the planet he wouldn't qualify:mad:

The end result was my husband did get awarded DLA ( I think I deserve a medal for wading through the forms tho!) and I now get carers. It took them so long to do this that by the time the award was made my daughter was finishing her exams and college was breaking up :-(

themull1

Could your daughter get a weekend job to help?

crazycurls

Yes she did get a job at weekends which she still has:)