Injuries claim V income support

Yuki60

Hi!

I'm on income support and also disability living allowance. Have recently started a claim against my local council for injuries I received in a fall on a damaged pavement lifted by tree roots. Can anyone tell me if i do receive any compensation if this would affect my income support. Or is it ok as long as its under £8000 which i think is the amount of savings you're allowed to have. I don't expect to win my case because its notoriously hard to win against local authorities but knowing would let me know if its even worth continuing. Any compensation i might get would be way under £8000 i would imagine.

Indie_Kid

The lower limit is £6000. Betwen 6k & 16k, the amount is reduced - £1 for every £250. (or part of)

Yuki60

Thanks for the quick reply. So that means as long as i get below £6000 the DWP won't touch it or change my money? I only ask because the solicitor says he has to inform income support if I get compensation and wondered why. If it is more than the 6k how do dwp work out how long to reduce my payments for?

Thanks for the help

dmg24

Are you claiming IS as a result of your injury? If so, the DWP may claim back your IS payments from your award.

Yuki60

No i've been on income support and disability living allowance for a long time due to a severe anxiety disorder. Nothing to do with the accident which only happened 2 months ago.

dmg24

It should not be a problem then. However, on a personal note, I would still consider whether you want to go ahead with your claim. Were the council truly negligent, or was it an accident?

cronik

Personal injury trusts. Google away, these are for compo payouts to stop compo from being means tested.

Yuki60

I am aware of thoughts in some places of the where theres blame theres a claim tendency today. This is the first time i have ever felt the need to sue a council. I have fallen twice before due to bad pavements over the past 20 years. Once i ripped all the ligaments in my leg and ankle and was on crutches for 6 months and still suffer pain. I never sued because I should have looked where i was going and was busy looking at a letter i was reading. Hence partly my own fault. However, this time it was not. I have a severe anxiety disorder and it isn't pleasant for me to go through any sort of litigation. But the attitude of the council who refuse to even apologise pushed me into it. It happened at night and if an elderly person had fallen a lot more damage would have been done. The street where it happened is in a disgusting state due to tree roots lifting up parts of the pavement. The council are aware of it and have slapped a bit of cement in some places and left others so its not like they couldn't have mended it before. It also takes a long time for roots to lift slabs and pavements and the damage would have been obvious either on inspection or if they had bothered. The part i fell on was lifted nearly 2 inches higher than the other slabs and so yes it was negligence. A broken slab can happen overnight and i would not have claimed for that as i feel they could not have been forewarned. This however, took months to happen. Either they haven't bothered carrying out regular inspections or they didn't do a proper inspection of the whole road. Either way its negligence. Don't even get me started on their rudeness and refusal to apologise. That's all it would have taken in the first place.

Yuki60

cronik wrote: »

Personal injury trusts. Google away, these are for compo payouts to stop compo from being means tested.

Thanks i'll do that. At the end of the day, they have deeper pockets than my solicitor who will only take it up to the 3 month 1 daby limit the council have to deny or admit liability. Apparently they only admit liability in 20% of cases using some legal term I can't remember. It's really odd though, i have injuries almost like whiplash to my back and neck and yet i only stumbled and fell on my hands and knees. I had to twist as i fell to avoid headbutting a postbox. Kinda scared me for a while (I'm anxious anyway). The pain has been awful and all just because of muscle and tissue damage. I don't know, I know some people don't believe in suing local councils for this sort of thing, but surely in this sort of case where the damage to pavements has taken months to happen and they're aware of the problem in general, haven't they been negligent?

dmg24

So you are going to do something that is going to make your primary health condition worse? You are putting money before your health. That is pretty silly.

dmg24

Where do you think the money comes from when you sue the council?