Esa

Reuben0805

Hi
Firstly I'm sorry if these are stupid questions!
My husband was signed off work with severe depression along with other health conditions in April 2015 and was awarded contribution based ESA and was initially placed in the WRAG . We asked for a mandatory reconsideration which was overturned, and eventually got to the tribunal yesterday after appealing, and the judge found in his favour and stated he will be transferred to the support group. (At last common sense prevailed!)
However as he'd had 365 days of contribution based ESA this had been stopped, and despite him applying for income based ESA 6 weeks ago the DWP haven't actioned this. Hence we are now trying to survive on my wages from a part time job (10 hrs a week, which I had reduced from 20 hrs to be here to support my husband.) I earn £80 a week.
No one at DWP will tell us
1:how much we will be getting
2:when!
3:whether it will be contribution based, or income related, or a combination of the two.
He has applied for PIP and if this is successful I will apply for Carer's Allowance.
The judge did say he would be placed into the Support group and this would be back dated-is it back dated to the original claim date or the 14th week? From looking on Internet it implies that if you are in the Support group you will remain in contribution based ESA- or have I misunderstood the whole thing?
To be honest my head is spinning from all this-we appealed way back in November and it's taken until now for someone to recognise that there are very real problems going on here. We do not receive any tax credits, (no children under 20) no housing benefit or council tax reduction,and DWP said we don't qualify for a hardship payment! £80 a week isn't going far!

pmlindyloo

Since your husband has been placed in the support group then any extra money should be backdated to the 14th week of his claim. This should consist of the support group component and the ESA support group for the weeks he wasn't paid. (Because as long as you are in the support group you can continue to receive contribution based)

As regards a joint claim for income based ESA then you should be entitled to this from the time you went down to 10 hrs (I believe 20 hrs @ £8 an hour would stop any income based 'top up'.)

Very complicated, hence the DWP taking their time to 'sort'.

Just make sure that the DWP has your pay slips etc so they can see your entitlement.

The income based ESA will give you entitlement to full HB up to the one bed LHA of housing benefit and council tax reduction.

You could try asking for backdating of HB and CT reduction but this is currently restricted to one month. (Not sure if there are exceptions to this)

Once your OH gets his PIP award then you can investigate whether to claim CA and IS - get some advice from CAB - you need a better off calculation done - or stay on the joint ESA.

TELLIT01

I'm not so sure about the date to which it will be backdated. I have something buzzing around in the back of my brain about it only being backdated to the date of the tribunal decision.

Alice_Holt

TELLIT01 wrote: »

I'm not so sure about the date to which it will be backdated. I have something buzzing around in the back of my brain about it only being backdated to the date of the tribunal decision.

The tribunal are reviewing the DWP decision, and their ruling is therefore backdated to the original (incorrect) DWP decision date.