Advice for ESA claim please

danilyon

Hi there,

My husband has depression and I am currently 34 weeks pregnant with our 2nd child. We were both university students, this was meant to be my husbands final year and my 2nd year. Due to my husbands depression he did not once attend university for this academic year. I managed to attend sporadically until November. We took our daughter out of nursery at the beginning of January as we were struggling. I was (and still am) struggling to cope with my husbands depression and having to try and get him back to the dr aswell as looking after our daughter, the house and trying to cope with SPd/sciatica. Both my husband and I suspended our studies on 1st March as it was either that or we both would have been withdrawn from our courses. I received my last payment of student loan but my husband did not.

Originally, I tried to claim for JSA when I was first suspended as I did not think I was getting my final payment of student loan. When I went for the interview I was told that I would not qualify for JSA and I would be better to claim for ESA through my husband by the benefits advisor after she had listened to my circumstances. I was under the impression hubby would need to have a doctors note before we applied, but my husband would still not leave the house. In fact, he only saw the doctor again last week for the first time in months. Therefore we did not end up applying for the ESA. Thankfully I got the final payment of student loan at the end of april.

On 17th May I applied for Income support for me and my husband as a joint claim. Gave them all of the evidence they asked for and had a letter today to say we were not eligible. When I rang up they said it was because we were students, even though we provided evidence to say we were suspended with the option to go back to our course in the next 5 years. I do not know when my husband or myself will return to university, hopefully as soon as possible but at the moment it looks like it won't be for at least a year.

Anyway, today I rang up to apply for ESA as this is what I was told to apply for when I rang up about the income support. I have given them all the details and was told that we should receive forms within 2 days and then once we've sent those off we should hear within 2 weeks about the decision. Can anyone explain to me what happens then or if you even think we would be eligible? We have no money coming in at the moment and have bills covered for June but then we will literally have nothing and we have the mortgage etc to try keep up with.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

rogerblack

danilyon wrote: »

Hi there,
Both my husband and I suspended our studies on 1st March as it was either that or we both would have been withdrawn from our courses.
<snip>

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

In some cases - suspending a course can be treated as a 'temporary interruption' - meaning you/'re not entitled to ESA, as you're in full time education.
How old are you? The regulations differ for > and <19
And have you been employed or self-employed for the last couple of years?

danilyon

rogerblack wrote: »

In some cases - suspending a course can be treated as a 'temporary interruption' - meaning you/'re not entitled to ESA, as you're in full time education.
How old are you? The regulations differ for > and <19
And have you been employed or self-employed for the last couple of years?

Thank you for replying. I am 24 and my husband is 26. My husband did a placement year last year but he only lasted until the April as that's when he stopped going out of the house/getting out of bed and when his depression came to light. He was working full time from August 2009 until April 2010 and paying tax and national insurance during that time. He was signed off as sick for 2 months from April 2010 until June 2010 with depression but then had to leave the work at the request of his employer and the university.

I worked part time for 3 months before my husband started his placement and my university course started in September 2009. Before that I did not work or claim any benefits (apart from child benefit and child tax credit) and stayed at home to look after our daughter.

I am a bit stuck to what we would be entitled to if we are not entitled to ESA, since we are not eligible for income support and neither of us are able to get a job at this moment in time due to our situation. Would we be unable to claim anything at all then since I am assuming that we would still be seen as being students, even though we are both suspended from our studies?

Thanks again

MrsManda

You need to find out what your precise status is with your university. If you're classed as temporary suspended then you are likely to be still classed as a student for benefit purposes.

However when I suspended my course indefinitely due to illness I was classed as being withdrawn on medical grounds. This meant I was no longer a student, ineligible for student finance and no longer allowed access to university facilities without express permission from the course tutors.

It also meant I was now counted for CT purposes and able to claim ESA but my agreement with the university was that I could re-enrol when I was better in order to pick up where I left off.

Oldernotwiser

I think you will have complicated your situation enormously by taking your final loan payment at the end of April when you had officially withdrawn from the course at the start of March. In fact, without wanting to add to your worries, you may be looking at being asked for an immediate repayment. I also wonder whether you have informed the council that you are no longer students so that the can bill you for council tax.

You say that you have no income at the moment so what is the situation is with your CB/CTC claim?

danilyon

Thank you both for your replies.

MrsManda - When I suspended I was told that it was with the option to come back within the next 5 years to pick up where I left off if and when I felt ready to come back. The only reason I actually suspended was because it was that or getting withdrawn from the course. I realise now that I would have only failed the year anyway so it was the best option. I am not sure whether we are classed as temporary suspended or otherwise so I will check this with the university.

Older - I wasn't expecting the payment as we both had letters through to say they had been informed of a change of circumstances, and both of us wouldn't be receiving any of our final installment of our student loans. I then got a letter through at the beginning of April to say that they had reassessed my situation and that I would be getting my final installment of loan. I read on the Internet that they sometimes did this depending of the circumstances of your suspension and that it was upto them whether you got it or not. To be honest i still didn't expect to get it so was surprised when I did. If I have to pay it back then I will of course pay it back. God knows how but I will. We do still get CB and CTC, sorry I thought I had mentioned this in one of my posts. We are not getting any until near the end of this month, so we do have something coming in although we will have nothing really to live off until then...I think we may have about £30 in our bank account at the moment, which is to cover the house insurance that comes out in the middle of the month. That being said, the money off the CB and CTC will have to go towards the mortgage whrn they do come in as we cannot risk potentially missing a payment from that. This literally means we will be left with nothing each month. With regards to council tax it did not cross my mind until recently that I had to sort that out, which I'm in the process of sorting out so am aware that this is something else we need to pay.