Incapacity Benefit - moving to another county

getting-sorted-sarah

Hi,

Hope that someone can clarify this for me - asking on behalf of a friend who has been claiming non contributory Incap and is about to move to another UK County - has been told (not by DSS) that he will have to make a new claim for Incap - is this right?

He is pretty stressed about this, surely he would just need to inform a change of address?

Hope someone can help - Sunday night and no one to phone!!

Thanks

ErisBadb

Hi - I cannot see anything anywhere that says your friend will have to make a new claim if he changes his address.
However the confusion may have come from the fact that from October 2010 Jobcentre Plus will start reassessing the claims of people who are receiving Incapacity Benefit, Income Support paid on the grounds of disability and Severe Disablement Allowance to see if they are fit for work. If they are eligible they will be moved onto ESA instead.
See http://www.dwp.gov.uk/adviser/updates/ib-reassessing-claims/ib-reassessment-process/

getting-sorted-sarah

Thanks, I can't see anything either, it doesn't make sense to me as it is a national benefit (unlike Housing Benefit eg). But he says it happened to him when he moved from Scotland to England a while ago - his claim was stopped and he was told to start again.
I know about the new ESA migration, but this is unrelated. I can only think that a mistake was made in ending his claim last time?

ErisBadb

Think you may have just answered the question . Laws ( including social security ) vary between Scotland and England so he would have had to make a new claim I'm thinking.