Attendance Allowance and Carers Allowance

the_greed

After browsing these forums I decided to apply for attendance allowance for my 78 year old mum who has dry macular degeneration, her vision is very bad, is very deaf, suffers from arthritis in her knees and back and also has problems with her waterworks. She is not very pleased at me for doing this as she feels a fraud but she has worked all her life and I feel that she has nothing to lose by applying. After all her problems are not exagerated and they can only say no. She lives with my 79 year old dad who's blood pressure is a little too high but is very fit and plays golf three times a week. My husband who is 62 is on incapacity benefit and on DLA, he gets the high rate of mobility and the low rate care component, he also has pension credit guarantee which brings our income up to what the government says that we can live on. I have no income whatsoever as I am a housewife and my husband's incapacity benefit claim is for a married couple. I look after both my husband, mum and dad. I do not know if my mum will be successful with her claim but if she is I am wondering if would I be able to claim carers allowance for her as I am at her house every day helping her. I have worked most of my life and would like to be able to help my mum and dad a bit more financially. The only thing that is putting me off is how will this effect my husband's benefits and my mum's attendance allowance if she is successful. My mum was horrified today when I told her I had applied for the attendance allowance online but its too late I have done it now. Thanks in advance for any advice

babyboo42

If your mother is awarded AA you can claim Carer's Allowance for her if you spend 35 hours a week or more caring for her. Have you thought about direct payments from the local authority? If you are not familiar with it it's a scheme whereby social services pay your mother money to 'hire' help for herself.
I would suggest you give your local social services elderly care team

AgeingSaver

Hi

There are several issues to consider before claiming Carer's Allowance.

Everything is covered by the Direct Gov 'Carer's Allowance factsheet' at the link below:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/CaringForSomeone/MoneyMatters/DG_10018705

Best wishes

Morglin

This gives a lot of guidance on claiming AA:

http://www.benefitsnow.co.uk/default.asp

Lin

the_greed

Thanks for the replies. All the income which comes into our home is for my husband. We get council tax and housing benefit. I do not want to get any carers allowance if this will effect that. ie the carers allowance cancels out the council tax benefit and the housing benefit.

Morglin

Use this to work out what overlaps:

http://www.entitledto.co.uk/

Lin