Attendance Allowance cancelled without warning.

crunchie1

My mother was awarded Attendance Allowance 4 years and 5 months ago. She received it by direct payment into her bank account every monday, with her pension payment. They used to appear separately but in recent years the two were paid together as one item.

On her last bank statement she found that 4 weeks ago she received no money at all one week. The following 2 weeks she received a lower amount which she realises is her pension without the AA. Then she had one week with double the pension amount, presumably to redress the missing week. Since then just her pension was paid.

She did not receive any notification of the AA being cut, or the missing pension. We have no idea why it might have been stopped. She has not been in hospital. Her health is certainly no better than it was 4 years ago. There has been no correspondence at all.

She has phoned the relevant department. All they can say is that the AA was terminated, and that often leads to a late pension payment as they are both cancelled and just the pension reinstated. They have no information on why the AA was stopped.

They can only conjecture that it was issued with a time limit in the first place. It seems to us highly unlikely that it would have had a limit of 4 years and 4 months.

Also I am not convinced that it is normal to simply have a week's pension missed out, then credited 3 weeks late. My mother had a little extra in her account and could manage, but many people would be in real difficulty if this happened.

Has anyone had a similar situation ? can anyone advise us how to get an answer as to what has happened ? She has been told she can always re-apply, but this is not really the point. And she would still be missing the 5 weeks already incurred.

It seems very odd that there is nothing on file to show why the change was made, and no letter to explain.

rogerblack

Several issues.
Firstly, terminating her AA without a letter is not legal.

They cannot do it, a decision without notification is not legal, and may mean that payment has to resume.

You need to find out when the decision on the AA claim was made, and if it was notified to her, and on what date.
It's possible it's got lost in the post.

If the decision was notified under a month ago, your first step would be to request a written statement of reasons for the decision terminating benefit.
You are likely to be too late to do this in-time (assuming it has been lost in the post. If the letter has not been posted, then the time limits for an appeal have not even begun to run)

Then you need to make a possibly late appeal against the decision to terminate AA.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/privacy-policy/data-protection/ - may be useful - request first thing on monday a full copy of her AA file.

Anyway - first things that need doing are to find out when the decision was made, and when it was notified. If the people on the phone can't help you, ask for a callback from someone that can.

It's unclear above if you've contacted HMRC, or the AA people. AA are the only people that can help.

Once you have some more information, it may be appropriate to seek advice locally, or post what the results are.

crunchie1

Thank you for your very helpful reply. I will apply to get her file on Monday. She contacted both HMRC and AA. THe AA person was very unhelpful. Just said she didn't know why it was terminated, and re-application was the only remedy.

She also said she could do little to help as my mother did not know the exact date the AA was first awarded ! she stated that my mother should have kept the notification letter. It is possible that we have it somewhere, but it is well over 4 years ago. My mother was struggling at the time with both her own health problems and my father's dementia. She is normally very good with paperwork but some things got lost in the chaos. Mum told the AA woman that it was summer 2008 but apparently that was not accurate enough.

We had assumed that the whole thing was a simple mistake and had not got all the facts ready before calling. But I would have thought the details are on their computers anyway.

Saversue

Did you Mum get a letter asking her to reconfirm bank details etcby any chance?
My Mum got one of these but it didn't look genuine so I didn't complete it, instead I rang up the real phone number, as the one on the letter wasn't one I had ever seen before, to double check.
I was told it was genuine and they check up on 10% of people on AA each year (to make sure they are still alive etc) but as I had given them details over the phone we could throw the form away.
A few weeks later all her money stopped including her pension. Reason given, we hadn't sent the form back!!! and she could be dead.
I was really annoyed as the original forms really did look like a scam with an unheard of name, address and phone number.
Only that I am Power of Attorney would they speak to me and eventually got it all sorted out and put a complaint in.

crunchie1

The plot thickens.

Mum rang the AA people again today, as she had heard nothing back. They told her that there is no record on their files of her ever having had AA, only that an application pack was sent out but never returned.

She has had it every week since May 2008 and gets a pension letter every April detailing what the payments will be. But they seem to have wiped it from their system.

They simply will not believe her. They say they will look into it but it will take time, but will give no idea of how long. But if they have deleted her what will they find when they investigate.

They say they are not obliged to inform anyone when a benefit is stopped, but that anyway she was never getting it.

I have POA for my mother and access to her bank account online, so I know exactly when they stopped paying it. She is not mistaken.

We have applied to see her file as advised, but suppose this will take time.

Pollycat

What is the situation now?

Are you waiting for her file?

Why not send them a couple of copies of the annual letters that clearly prove that your Mum was in receipt of AA and see what they say about that?
Do they specifically refer to Attendance Allowance?
If DWP have been sending your Mum letters that say something like "your AA will be £xx.xx per week wef April 20xx", they can't continue to deny that she was ever in receipt of AA.

crunchie1 wrote: »

My mother was awarded Attendance Allowance 4 years and 5 months ago. She received it by direct payment into her bank account every monday, with her pension payment. They used to appear separately but in recent years the two were paid together as one item.

This sounds strange to me.
My Mum receives some benefits (including her state pension) and they still all appear as separate lines on her bank account e.g. DWP SP, DWP AA etc.
It sounds very strange and you must be tearing your hair out.

Please keep us informed what happens.

sleepless_saver

Try contacting your MP to hurry them up if you don't get anywhere quickly once you've sent them the evidence.

Pollycat

margaretclare wrote: »

Normally AFAIK it's all paid as one payment, whether weekly or 4-weekly according to the option you chose.

Not always. From my earlier post:

Pollycat wrote: »

My Mum receives some benefits (including her state pension) and they still all appear as separate lines on her bank account e.g. DWP SP, DWP AA etc.

Maybe it depends on the method of payment.

Pollycat

margaretclare wrote: »

Just checked my bank statement online, and it gives my NI number then 'DWP SP'.

Maybe (and I don't want to know) you are only getting your state pension and no other benefits.

My Mum's bank statement says;
<nino> DWP SP (i.e. State Pension)
<nino> DWP AA (i.e. Attendance Allowance)

If she were on other benefits, it would show (for example):
<nino> DWP PC (i.e. Pension Credit)

Disability Living Allowance appears as:
<nino> DWP DLA

margaretclare wrote: »

Maybe it's down to the bank. But how would the bank know how that payment was made up?

I think it's rather that that's how DWP pay benefits (i.e. separately), not down to the bank.

crunchie1

Yes we are waiting for her file from data protection. Her bank statement shows one entry for pension and AA, and has for the last 4 years. It used to be listed separately. I do a tax reclaim for her for bank interest every year and had to separate the amounts myself for the last few years, as the AA is not taxable. But she does have some of the annual letters showing how much her AA and pension will be, including this year's. She just can't find the first letter showing she was awarded it.

I live some distance away and have asked her not to post the originals of these to them. I want to make copies first. Otherwise I am worried we will have no proof at all left. Her bank statements clearly show that the payment has suddenly gone down by the exact amount of AA, and also the week with the missing pension.

The people on the phone were less than helpful. In fact the man yesterday was quite sarcastic. He asked her how she knew she wasn't getting it if she hadn't had a letter telling her it had been stopped ! She told him once again that she is quite capable of reading her bank statement.

I really wish she didn't have all this to worry about. She is not in good health, and going to visit the MP won't be easy. I live in a different county which makes it more difficult to help. I will put together a letter and some copies of proof, and let you know how we get on.

I pity anyone who has this happen to them, who isn't able to make phone calls or write letters. A lot of people receive AA because they have dementia, and they would not even necessarily know the money had stopped being paid.

We will not give up though on principle. It is a significant part of her income too, over 25%.

sleepless_saver

crunchie1 wrote: »

I really wish she didn't have all this to worry about. She is not in good health, and going to visit the MP won't be easy. I live in a different county which makes it more difficult to help.

She doesn't need to go in person. She (or you) can write a letter to the MP or phone their office. Either way she should provide copies of the statements, and set out what has happened and how she has been treated.

If she is able to get to CAB and take along her statements, they could try to deal with the problem on her behalf.

Meantime, she should keep records of phone calls to DWP, who she spoke to , when and what they said.