ESA - does it affect your housing benefit?

cobham78

I'm currently working part time, earning approx £6000 annual salary whilst my partner is currently out of work (he was made redundant in the current climate), but due to health reasons is considering claiming ESA.

We also receive housing benefit and working/childtax credits but I was wondering if claiming ESA would affect this? I know when we've had changes in circumstances before, anything my partner earns seems to come off the HB, thereby putting us in the same position as we were to start with (only having filled out a million forms!!).

Obviously, with him being out of work and now unable to work, we really could do with the extra help.

dazzadub

in simple terms, it will, he will be put on contribution based esa, and its classed as income.

this happened to me few weeks back and ended up paying everything in full. which i couldnt afford.

i found it was more benefical not to claim esa as you will end up paying more rent, council tax, and will get less tax credits

Tally-Ho_2

The problem he may face though, if he declines to claim ESA (or even Job Seekers Allowance) then his National Insurance 'account' will not be credited during the period he is out of work. If it is not going to be a long period he should be able to make enough NI payments when he gets back to work, but if it is for a protracted period, then it may affect his state pension etc when he is due to retire. It could also affect his 'right' to claim contributory benefits in the future as well due to the gap in his NI contributions/credits record.

Tally

SnowOne

Without doing a proper calculation based on your actual circumstance it is hard to say whether or not the ESA will make you better or worse off. It may be worthwhile either going into a CAB or using an online benefit calculator like the one on turn 2 us - google turn2us (I can't post a link!) .

I suspect you may be slightly better off with ESA, but it won't be by much - but as Tally-Ho mentioned there may be other reasons why a claim is beneficial.