Disability Living Allowance questions?

zippy1969

A friend of mine has been on ESA for a while and just put in a claim for DLA. She has been awarded the low rate mobility and high rate care components. Obviously, this equates to quite alot of money for which she will be really grateful. However, she has a few questions and I don't know the answers?

1. My friend gets full Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. Can her award of DLA be taken into account when calculating HB/CTB? In effect, will the DLA award reduce her entitlement to HB/CTB or is DLA disregarded when making the calculation?

2. In the past, my friend has applied for DLA twice. The first time was about 10 years ago, then again about 5 years ago. She was turned down on both occasions. Both of these unsuccessful claims were based on the same circumstances she is in now and has been awarded DLA. She knew about the appeals process but was too ill to deal with appeals and so just left it. Would she now have a case for DLA to be backdated to the date of her first application?

3. Are there any other benefits she can get? To confirm, she now gets DLA (low rate mobility/high rate care), ESA and full HB/CTB.

I hope somebody can help with the above?

Many thanks in advance for any advice anyone can give.

dmg24

1. No, her HB and CTB will not be reduced.

2. No, she will not get ten years backdating. I imagine that her forms and doctors reports were not identical on each occasion? There can be grounds for backdating, but she would have been expected to follow up the claims long before now.

3. What rate of ESA does she get? She may now receive an additional premium.

zippy1969

dmg24 wrote: »

1. No, her HB and CTB will not be reduced.

2. No, she will not get ten years backdating. I imagine that her forms and doctors reports were not identical on each occasion? There can be grounds for backdating, but she would have been expected to follow up the claims long before now.

3. What rate of ESA does she get? She may now receive an additional premium.

Thank you for the quick response.

Regarding the previous claims, she photocopied the application forms and from what I can see, both outline her circumstances as being exactly the same as they are now. Would the fact that she kept these help in any way?

She gets £94.25 a week from ESA.

Cheers

rogerblack

zippy1969 wrote: »

Thank you for the quick response.

Regarding the previous claims, she photocopied the application forms and from what I can see, both outline her circumstances as being exactly the same as they are now. Would the fact that she kept these help in any way?

She gets £94.25 a week from ESA.

Cheers

As I understand it, the deadline for a late appeal is 12 months after the decision.
So even a late appeal (after the normal month or so) would seem to fail.
I wish it wasn't so - for similar reasons I wasn't claiming benefit for a couple of years - and now have no way to reclaim.

pmlindyloo

zippy1969 wrote: »

Thank you for the quick response.

Regarding the previous claims, she photocopied the application forms and from what I can see, both outline her circumstances as being exactly the same as they are now. Would the fact that she kept these help in any way?

She gets £94.25 a week from ESA.

Cheers

Her application form may have been 'the same' but it could well be that the doctors' reports were different.