One off contract fee and my ESA

Sarrian

My wife and I are struggling on benefits, she is disabled and I've had two strokes, we are both on ESA.
I have been offered a short term contract job which would pay a fee of just over £5,000, paid in a lump sum; how would this impact our benefits?
We also claim Housing and Council tax benefit. I'm really worried it could screw things up for us, please help!

TELLIT01

How long is the contract? In broad terms your ESA entitlement will cease if your weekly income exceeds the amount you currently receive OR you work 16 hours per week or more. Once the contract has ended you would make a new claim to ESA. This will be a Rapid Reclaim if the gap between claims is less than 12 weeks, and you would go back onto ESA at the rate you are currently receiving. If the gap is over 12 weeks it would be classed as a new claim and you would go back on at the assessment rate and have a new assessment etc.
You say you are both on ESA. If you have seperate Conts claims your wife's clam would not be affected.

Sarrian

The contract spans seven months but has long periods of inactivity. It's not due to end until March 2017 when I would receive the remainder of the fee.
So as it stands I would begin on 1st Sept and end on 18th of March. There would be two payments £3770 payable w/c 10/10/16 and £1925 payable w/c 13/02/17.
I have to do it, it may be the last opportunity I get but need to know what to do to have minimum impact on our ESA, Housing benefit, and Council Tax as it won't be sufficient to support us will it and it's really more therapeutical because of my strokes than anything else.

Poppie68

Have you informed the DWP of the work? Have they allowed it under 'Permittable work'?

Confuseddot

Who is claiming the ESA, which group are you in and is it contribution or income based ?

The maximum you can work is 16 hours a week and the maximum you can earn is £115.50 a week. So if the ESA is under your name you could no longer claim any.

TELLIT01

You really do need to speak to somebody at DWP to find out how this is going to affect your ESA. A simple division of the amount by the number of weeks certainly suggests you will be earning too much to continue claiming ESA.