ESA question re' means testing

Boots888

So now that you've all been given the FACTS by a well informed poster - SparkyCat you could apologise to me for calling me a fool and questioning not only my integrity and motives but my intelligence in deciding to move abroad.

Of course that would show character, which a few have you have shown to lack, somewhat - so I'll not expect one, but it would be appropriate.

I shouldn't have let myself get upset by a few forum posters but I did. I'm quite sensitive in that respect.

I'll also take advice from the DWP and argue, should I need to, exceptional circumstances as I don't like change and couldn't cope with being forced to relocate, it would be detrimental to my health should I need to sell up and return to UK due to the last minute change in this benefit.

Big Auntie, Seven Day Weekend et al really ought to keep their opinions to the discussion time forum. It's in the rules of MSE not to judge and to be helpful, not make personal attacks.

It was a right of mine to move abroad, not a privalidge as has been more than adequately explained. Over here, we also enjoy freedom of movement within the EU.

Here in Europe, we drive on the right, use the Euro (a different currency) and live in a different time zone (we are 1 hour ahead). You really do isolate yourselves from the wider community andI really suggest instead of making nasty posts, you learn to live and let live and stop being so hypocritical.

I wish the original OP the best and can understand the drop in income will affect your household. I hope you can work things out.

seven-day-weekend

Boots888 wrote: »

So now that you've all been given the FACTS by a well informed poster - SparkyCat you could apologise to me for calling me a fool and questioning not only my integrity and motives but my intelligence in deciding to move abroad.

Of course that would show character, which a few have you have shown to lack, somewhat - so I'll not expect one, but it would be appropriate.

I shouldn't have let myself get upset by a few forum posters but I did. I'm quite sensitive in that respect.

I'll also take advice from the DWP and argue, should I need to, exceptional circumstances as I don't like change and couldn't cope with being forced to relocate, it would be detrimental to my health should I need to sell up and return to UK due to the last minute change in this benefit.

Big Auntie, Seven Day Weekend et al really ought to keep their opinions to the discussion time forum. It's in the rules of MSE not to judge and to be helpful, not make personal attacks.

It was a right of mine to move abroad, not a privalidge as has been more than adequately explained. Over here, we also enjoy freedom of movement within the EU.

Here in Europe, we drive on the right, use the Euro (a different currency) and live in a different time zone (we are 1 hour ahead). You really do isolate yourselves from the wider community andI really suggest instead of making nasty posts, you learn to live and let live and stop being so hypocritical.

I wish the original OP the best and can understand the drop in income will affect your household. I hope you can work things out.

But I haven't been judgemental!!! :wall:I have simply expressed a personal opinion regarding the wisdom of moving abroad whilst relying on a sickness benefit. NOT ONCE have I said that Boots should not have her benefit. Not once have I said she should not move abroad. I have agreed that IB is exportable. Where we disagree is I don't think that just because it is exportable means it is going to last for ever. I have expressd an opinion (and also answered a lot of personal questions put to me by Boots, I might add).

I am being unfairly accused.

BigAunty

Boots888 wrote: »

..

I'll also take advice from the DWP and argue, should I need to, exceptional circumstances as I don't like change and couldn't cope with being forced to relocate, it would be detrimental to my health should I need to sell up and return to UK due to the last minute change in this benefit.

That's interesting - can't wait to see the DWP response to one person arguing they should have an exception to a national benefit policy change. Do come back to the forum and let us know how you get on.

Boots888 wrote: »

..


Big Auntie, Seven Day Weekend et al really ought to keep their opinions to the discussion time forum. It's in the rules of MSE not to judge and to be helpful, not make personal attacks.

...

Please re-read your posts to SDW and then climb down from your moral highground.

Boots888 wrote: »

It was a right of mine to move abroad, not a privalidge as has been more than adequately explained. Over here, we also enjoy freedom of movement within the EU.

...

Now we are getting to the nub of the matter - it is your human right to have your benefit entitlement set in aspic to suit you - society can change but you don't have to change with it.

What you have is a privilege that you have taken to be your right - nobody has the right to stay on an obsolete benefit when claimants are transitioning to another. You've had 5 years to contemplate and deal with the impact of the scrapping of IB but you are still at the chucking the dummy out of the cot stage.

I don't contest the freedom of movement within the EU but it still doesn't mean every EU benefit can be exported by the individual. Not sure why you have conflated these two separate policies.

skintmacflint

Without getting into any personal argument.

Due to successive governments folly and a false banking boom courtesy of the 'investment bankers' madness , the economics of the world have changed, and it's a right big mess.

Rightly or wrongly this government's responded by changing 'enshrined legislation' on benefits and many will feel the fall out for years to come. Includes those living abroad on exportable benefits.

Thousands of people are losing their jobs and homes and being forced into reduced standards/paid work options, through no choice of their own. Could take decades for this to change.

Don't think the poster who made decisions some years ago to move abroad has any more room to complain than millions here in the UK. Especially as we've also had to put up with crap weather over the past 5 summers. lol

Life is full of change, the only thing in life guaranteed is death. and supposedly taxes.

The OP made her decision based on the info she had at the time. Inevitably things change. Now she has to adapt the best she can, reconsider her options and decide from there.

Or sink. Personally if I was set up residential in Spain I'd be looking for any alternative way to generate income in Spain to stay afloat. British winters are dismal.

FBaby

sparkycat2 wrote: »

When your pass state retirment age and receive your NI contributions based state pension. Do you think that comes with restrictions as to where you can love

You say WHEN I think IF. That's the difference. Yes I do think I should be entitled to it considering the level of tax I pay but do I think I will get it in 20 years time? The way things are going I am not counting on it. And how about ask Therese people who lost all their savings through the bank disaster maybe they had mace plans rio move abroad and saw their dream shattered through no fault of theirs. The difference is this people made the choice to do with less at a time in their life for that benefit and still lost it that's why I have limited sympathy.

BigAunty

sparkycat2 wrote: »

...

When your pass state retirment age and receive your NI contributions based state pension. Do you think that comes with restrictions as to where you can live.
.

Actually, residency in certain countries does in fact affect pension entitlement. If a person has contributed to NI but moves to certain countries, their pension rate is frozen so they do not get the annual increase - over time, due to the effect of inflation, their state pension becomes worthless.

So like with Boots, there is no actual restriction on where you live but benefit dependency while residing overseas carries with it certain risks which the claimant must simply adapt to, rather than claiming it as a right. Benefits are changeable...who knew, eh?

seven-day-weekend

There is no restriction on anyone living abroad in Europe, anyone can live where they like. However, some people can't afford to. You do not have any right to have your income subsidised so you can do so. I think if ALL youi have is the basic State Pension, then you can't afford to live abroad - Pension Credit is not exportable. So it is not discriminatory to people on sickness Benefits, it's purely a matter of income.

If you can't afford to live abroad, then you can't but that is not the Government's fault!

BigAunty

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

...

If you can't afford to live abroad, then you can't but that is not the Government's fault!

Clearly that message has not got through to Boots - it is apparently the govts fault that they put down roots and invested in property because they were apparently told that their IB was secure overseas.

Obviously Boots has not considered over the past 6 years since she got an email (email?!) from a staff member of the pensions service that she might not recover and thus the property would be a millstone round her neck as she'd be obliged to seek employment in the UK if she wished to continue receiving benefits (and clearly she has no other means to continue living abroad or the loss of £100 a week wouldn't be so catastrophic).

So 'Pam' has inadvertently giving Boots the impression that her IB was assured and therefore did no kind of contingency or risk planning for the rather regular changes to the benefit system. I bet all that happened was 'Pam' gave an assurance that Boots currently qualified for IB overseas at the point of asking but that Boots read into it what she liked. She therefore stuck her fingers in her ears and covered her eyes from the following summer when the govt announced that IB was not fit for purpose and would be replaced.

seven-day-weekend

BigAunty wrote: »

Clearly that message has not got through to Boots - it is apparently the govts fault that they put down roots and invested in property because they were apparently told that their IB was secure overseas.

Obviously Boots has not considered over the past 6 years since she got an email (email?!) from a staff member of the pensions service that she might not recover and thus the property would be a millstone round her neck as she'd be obliged to seek employment in the UK if she wished to continue receiving benefits (and clearly she has no other means to continue living abroad or the loss of £100 a week wouldn't be so catastrophic).

So 'Pam' has inadvertently giving Boots the impression that her IB was assured and therefore did no kind of contingency or risk planning for the rather regular changes to the benefit system. I bet all that happened was 'Pam' gave an assurance that Boots currently qualified for IB overseas at the point of asking but that Boots read into it what she liked. She therefore stuck her fingers in her ears and covered her eyes from the following summer when the govt announced that IB was not fit for purpose and would be replaced.

When we lived abroad, ( and here in the UK) every letter my husband had from IB concerning his continuing entitlement had a date on it by which it would be reviewed again. He knew he could lose it at any time due to being told he no longer qualified. That's why we didn't rely on it!

Boots qualified at the time of asking. Now she doesn't because of a change of legislation. But it could have been withdrawn at any time, without the change, due to not qualifying in other ways. Seems simple enough to me.

iolanthe07

. It is paid out of National Insurance Contributions with any shortfall being paid out of the National Insurance Fund

You're wrong. There is no National Insurance Fund, and never was. Even Anauerin Bevin who set it up admitted it was a Ponzi scheme. In 1948 he said "The big secret about the National Insurance Fund is that there is no fund." National Insurance contributions are not ring fenced and go into the general taxation pot, out of which State pensions are paid.