What counts as income for Pensioners and HB/CTB?

Horseunderwater

Basically FIL and Step MIL have been told by letter that they were overpaid for last financial year.
Am I right in thinking that means tested income includes State/private pensions and any savings between £6k- £16k and is there anything else that they include. FIL and St MIL get DLA and AA as well as carers allowance, but I think they do not get actual money for the latter. They live in sheltered housing and get help with rent, HB & CT. He is blind and she has severe ME with Diabetes.
What may have happened, but I am not 100% sure of this is that their P60's have been applied to wrong years. They sent in all 3 years and somebody has copied last years figures onto the previous 2 tax years, but as they did not bring paperwork with them this week, I cannot tell for sure if that is what has happened. He is 78 and she is 71. Added to this - the lady they went to see about it all, could not fathom it out either! If I can find out what they use to calculate it all, then I can set out a form for her to fill in and take with her to Council and to get it sorted.

pmlindyloo

When you say they have been overpaid which benefit(s) are you talking about?

If you have all the figures then you can put the details into the benefit claculator on www.turn2us.org.uk to give you a good idea of their entitlement.

PS For the over 60s the figures are £10000 - £16000 for HB and CTB.

nannytone_2

carers allowance is classed as income too

Horseunderwater

The basic problem is that I do not know exactly which benefit(s) have been overpaid. Like I said they failed to bring the paperwork with them.
All I needed to know was which income counted for the means testing as there does not seem to be anywhere that this is written down in stone!

pmlindyloo

Does this help?

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/money-matters/claiming-benefits/means-tested-benefits/

There is a fact sheet that you can download as well.

sleepless_saver

You probably don't know if they do or not if you don't have the papers, but if they get guarantee pension credit, then there is no capital limit for HB and CTB purposes. The £6-£16k limit mentioned in another post applies to everyone else.

So for assessing their benefits, you need to know their capital, their state pension income, private pension income, DLA /AA and carers allowance. Plus you need their rent and council tax costs before benefits. Feed the figures (there is an option for carers allowance underlying entitlement but not paid) into turn2us calculator. http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx

nannytone_2

but they get an inderlying entitlement that opens up other avenues of support.

the OP states that they receive DLA, AA AND carers allowance.
nybe only one is receiving state pension, but that the private oension precludes the other from receiving additional benefit?

Horseunderwater

They get carers but not the money itself. So get the underlying options Nannytone mentioned.
Step MIL gets SP as does FIL - he gets full one but she gets less due to the married stamp thing - Was originally paying the smaller stamp, had her kids, but when she went back to work paid full stamp. If that makes sense. They are not back at home at the moment, so I cannot get figures for each thing just yet. He also gets a prison service pension. And thank you for the age UK thing - did not think of that one!