ESA Question

shelts

My good lady currently is in receipt of ESA and DLA. She's in Support Group on contributions based ESA and Higher Rate DLA. She has been in receipt of a very small pension from Allied Domecq ( £642 per annum declared from the very beginning)


She has now been told that following government legislation, companies are to carry out something called Trivial Commutation where any pension pot below £30,000 is to be paid out in lump sum. No issues with any of that, as the lump sum she will receive to 'buy' her out of the pension will be £22k minus tax.


My question is this:


How will this sum affect her ESA and DLA. We have asked at directgov and CAB and nobody seems to know.


thanks in advance


shelts

Ames

If she's on contributions based ESA it won't be affected, and neither will the DLA.

If she were to be moved into the Support Group and end up qualifying for income based ESA then it would be taken into account as capital.