Refused CB ESA

Miss_No-one

Hi, I had that last year. Total shock to me. They gave me £14.57 to live on for 3 weeks. I went to Citizens Advice - they filled in the new form for me. Considering my disabilities etc I was moved to ESA Support as opposed to ESA Work. Seriously you should consider some advice from a specialist like Citizens Advice or similar. They were wonderful. Not only that I initially was asked to attend ATOS but upon review - they cancelled my appointment and advised I do not need to attend. Again without the Advisor doing all this not sure what the outcome would have been.

DanDeerskin

Hi Miss No-one,

I've heard others in my local area talk about a local disability charity in very good terms about getting appointments to be supported through benefit issues and I think I'm going to get in touch. When these things go smoothly I can deal with the application side of things, but it's a complete maze when they throw you something you just aren't expecting! I'm glad to hear yours got sorted out with a positive outcome, I hope mine can be the same.

Katykat

I'm sure you still need to have paid enough NI contributions in the relevant 2 yrs to get ESA support rather than ESA Work related. The support group is granted if you meet one of the support group descriptors, but is still either contribution based (if you have enough NI contributions) or income based if you have a low household income and savings.

epitome

DanDeerskin wrote: »

Hi epitome,

Both cases of employment were Employed.

Yes I would have earned more than both those amounts in the respective periods.

The claim I have made was made over the phone and the person I dealt with was aware it was only due to start on the 8th of May when my SSP ended on the 7th May.

I believe I will be off sick till at least September but that could be significantly longer. The nature of my sickness is Mental Illness and up until now it has manifested itself as quite severe and extremely unpredictable.

My partner is contracted for 37.5 hours a week I believe, certainly more than 24.

Thank you for most excellently answering all of my questions. :T

The bad news is you won't get ESA payments now, but you can keep your claim open for NI credits. You will have to complete an ESA50 and attend a WCA, you will have to pass the WCA to continue to get your ESA NI credits paid. You can appeal if you fail but it will only be an appeal for NI credits (these are maybe not so important to you)

The good news is if you are still sick in 2014 you can make a new claim to ESA Conts in Jan uary 2014 they will use different tax years (11/12 & 12/13) and from what you say you should then qualify for payments on ESA C.